Hopefully, you can stand the HEAT of this season of Popaganda—because this week, host Carmen Rios is taking you into the kitchen, where refugee chefs and their neighbors are breaking bread and building community.
The Los Angeles-based organization Miry’s List has been supporting thousands of individuals and hundreds of families resettling as refugees in the United States since 2016. But more recently, Miry Whitehill began serving up social change by making space for shared meals through the New Arrival Supper Club series. Working with a standing committee of refugee chefs served by the Miry’s List community, her team puts together pop-up food experiences that offer people opportunities to meet the resettling families in their neighborhoods—and creates a critical revenue stream for folks forging a new future in the United States.
In this episode of Popaganda, Carmen talks to Miry and her right-hand woman for the Supper Club series, Christy Anderson, about what it took to build the program and how it’s advancing the organization’s mission. She also sits down with refugee chef Maaysa Kanjo, who prepares a very incredible hummus, and KCRW Good Food host Evan Kleiman, who shares her own personal supper club story.
Carmen’s piled-high plates don’t lie: She’s a fan of the food that defines these events, and of the emotional catharsis that comes from being in the room with newly arrived families and the community members that stand with them. But in exploring the Supper Club’s roots and imagining it’s future, she comes to realize just how powerful the mission of being a good neighbor really is—and how delicious love in action can be.
SHOUT-OUTS
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This episode ended up being fully baked just in time for the next slew of New Arrival Supper Clubs! If you’re in Los Angeles, click here to join Miry’s List for a special National Welcome Week supper club event on Saturday, September 14. (Click here for even more tasty offerings!)
- If you’re looking to break bread somewhere closer to home, check out the United Tastes of America.
- It was an honor to spend World Refugee Day with a powerhouse like Miry—and I was also proud that I could work with her over at Ms. to share her story. Click here to read about that first Miry’s List family, and the night in 2016 that changed everything.
- I’d also like to thank the Jane Club for being so generous with their space that day—and allowing me to shack up in the podcast room to talk to Maaysa and her family. Click here to watch my interview with the cofounders, Jess Zaino and June Diane Raphael, and learn more about their mission to empower working moms.
- When you’re done listening to this episode of Popaganda, tune in to the Thanksgiving episode of KCRW’s Good Food from last November—featuring Miry and Rabia Ahmadi in conversation with Evan Kleiman herself.
Photo via Christina Gandolfo/Miry’s List
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CARMEN: [Laughs.]
CHRISTY: You can’t eat that hummus and be mad, you know?!
CARMEN: Yes! And I just also feel like there’s that aspect too, of food being love in action, of this idea of this means a lot to me. And it’s sort of a cultural education for sure. But it’s also sort of that, you have a relationship with someone, right? Like when they cook something for you that is important to them or to their family, it’s like you are now part of their family or part of that dialogue that’s filled with food.
CHRISTY: Yeah. And it really, like the families that I work with at Supper Club, it truly has bonded us. Like my [chuckles] silly story, my dog was in the hospital ’cause he got diabetes. Which the concept of a hospital for pets is new to our Middle Eastern families.
BOTH: [Laugh.]
CHRISTY: It’s like yes, I understand. But even though that seems a little extravagant and odd, I love my dog. And they all were like, “Oh Christy, how’s your dog?” They were checking, Bashir from Afghanistan was checking in with me every day, like, “How is the dog? We’re praying for the dog.”
CARMEN: Aw.
CHRISTY: You know, it’s something, like we’re totally family now. When my son got his appendix out, families were visiting us in the hospital. So, it’s the food and the planning the meals, just planning the meals has bonded me with these people, with our families, for the rest of my life for sure. You know, the Kanjos have met my sister and made food to give to my parents when they were visiting. And so, it really, it’s such a bonding thing, and it has the power of changing lives.
CARMEN: I can vouch: I’ve been to two Supper Club events now, and they were both not only delicious, but deeply emotionally nourishing. They didn’t just help me relax and refuel. They gave me a burst of energy that made me wanna step up and make a difference. They made me wanna be a better neighbor. And rumor has it that I’m not the only one.
MIRY: The third Supper Club, it was a backyard family-friendly lunch, a Syrian lunch in my co-founder of the Supper Club, Kildow’s backyard. And I remember I had my baby in my arms, and I hear the most familiar voice. And she goes, “Excuse me, Miry.” And I know who it is before I even turn around because it’s Evan Kleiman!
CARMEN: [Chuckles.]
MIRY: And I’ve heard her 100,000 times on the radio, and I’m such a huge fan! And I had never seen a picture of her. But I turned around, and I go, “Are you Evan Kleiman From KCRW Good Food?” And I fangirled so hard. And she said, “I have to tell you something. I go on your lists when I feel really bad about the world—when my outlook, and I’m just feeling hopeless—I go on your lists.” And I’m by the way, standing there with my mouth open. I’m like, I cannot believe I’m talking to Evan Kleiman. And she says, “I find families that list things like professional-grade meat grinders and Cuisinarts and food processors, and I buy those things for them. Because when I see something like that on someone’s list, it tells me that they are a serious cook and that they need that to be able to make their food. And I’m thinking about how I can help them do that. And it gives me hope. It brings me back.” And I’m like so floored to be meeting this person, and I just said, “Thank you so much, Evan Kleiman of KCRW!”
BOTH: [Laugh.]
[theme music]
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It just so happens that I also met chef and journalist Evan Kleiman, of Southern California NPR station KCRW’s Good Food at a Miry’s List Supper Club event. In fact, I met her on World Refugee Day. And then, as one does, I invited her to come out to West Hollywood and talk to me about the purposeful and pivotal design of Miry’s program.
CARMEN: How does it come that you get involved with Miry’s List and with the Supper Club?
EVAN KLEIMAN: I…I don’t really remember. It must’ve been that I saw the list. And Miry probably remembers better than I do, but I became aware of the list. Oh no, that’s not it. I saw on Facebook, I must’ve seen on Facebook, that there was an event happening in somebody’s backyard and that it was for new arrivals. And I usually am kind of shy, which might be surprising to some people.
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
EVAN: And I don’t tend to do a lot of these kinds of things where I know nobody where I’m going to be going. But it had occurred to me that in this new world of harder immigration situations for Latinos that restaurateurs would need to reach out to other groups to try and find workers. Because there’s already such a chef shortage right here in Los Angeles. And it occurred to me that refugees have passports. They have legalized status. So, I gave the heads up to a couple colleagues of mine, and I said, “Why don’t we go to this event and just check it out and see what it’s about?” And so, we ended up in the backyard of one of Miry’s friends, and it was super homey and humble. And the food that was featured, it was sort of like picnic style. The food that was featured was from newly-arrived folks, and it was delicious. And we just sat down at tables and just start talking to folks, talking to some young people that were there. And my friends ended up hiring someone that they met at that event, and I think he still works for them part-time off and on. This is a couple years ago now. And then I got into conversation with Miry, and of course, Miry is one of the most galvanizing, charismatic people.
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
EVAN: So, then I became intrigued about the lists. And if you’re me and you go on the list, that of course, what you immediately do is you scroll down to kitchen. What do people need to set up a home for kitchens? And when you start looking at the list, you realize, I mean you already know before you go on the list, a lot of these people have very little, sometimes nothing, when they’re setting up the house. But when you’re looking at the list of what they’re asking for—plates, glasses, silverware, cookware—then you become really, really aware. And so, I sort of just started every week, if I had a little bit of extra money, going on and sort of going on a shopping spree for somebody else. And it felt really good to be able to do something so direct.
CARMEN: Yeah. Well, and I mean you’re a food journalist, so food is obviously something you love. And what do you feel the power of food and building this kitchen for our folks and helping them sort of build up that part of their home, what do you feel the unique power is there?
EVAN: Well, I mean I come at this less as a journalist than just as a person for whom food has been the main driver in my life. I mean before it was even a profession, it was the way I interacted with people. I would, being a shy young person, I didn’t like sitting at the table and having to be in conversation with people. So, I would just cook. And so, cooking, I could be on the edges. I could serve people and interact with people how I wanted without having to sit there and make conversation. Which is hilarious given what I do for a living now.
But I mean the kitchen is the heart of the home. I mean everybody knows that. It doesn’t matter how big your house is. If your kitchen is like a postage stamp and you have friends over, everybody ends up in that postage stamp by the end of the night!
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
EVAN: And if you go on these lists and you see yes, they need all the kitchenware, they also need bedding. They need pillows. They need blankets. For me, as a person who just can’t go on the list and click everything, which I wish I could do, that I aspire to do one day, I had to focus. So, for me, focusing on helping people, primarily the woman of the house, be able to go in the kitchen and make food that is familiar for her family, you know, we all know that when you’re in a place that is new and scary and different, eating—and even more important sometimes I feel like smelling the aromas—of home is very grounding.
And what I think is great about the events that Miry’s List does, these Supper Clubs, is that it’s a way for those of us in the community who are interested in food and interested in the larger world and are perhaps having a lot of anxiety right now given the overarching political moment, this is something that is very real, that you can do where you live, that makes you feel like you’ve done something yes, small but important. I mean, a lot of the families who cook are cooks. I mean they came over from whatever country they’ve come from, and they had a bakery or they had a catering company or they had an informal catering situation where they cooked for clients in their neighborhood. And so, they come over with skills, and we need those kind of skills. And why wouldn’t we wanna share and learn about their food?
CARMEN: What are some of the food highlights that you remember from these events? I mean, I still think about the World Refugee Day food. I’m still just everyday like, oh my god. That was so good.
EVAN: I mean, and also it’s a moment where, you know, Middle Eastern restaurants are popping up all over the place. And so, fatte, I love fatte, the dish with yogurt and pita, it’s just, and garbanzo beans, so delicious. I mean for me, I just love the experience of tasting somebody else’s hand work and all the different kinds of kibbeh and all the different kinds of like we would say hand pies, but not, different kinds of things folded in dough and then either baked or fried. I mean it’s just another example of you think you know food, but then you taste somebody else’s food, and you realize, oh, there’s more to learn. Because you know, all of us, all families have like 5 to 10 things in rotation. [Chuckles.] And I just love learning what those five to 10 things are in other families.
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
EVAN: So, it’s always delicious. People are so open and willing to share what the dishes are. And I remember once with Abeer, I was like, oh my gosh. This fatte’s incredible. I wanna learn how to make it. So, she invited me over to her house, and we had this lesson that was just so much fun and wonderful. And it was just great hanging out with her.
CARMEN: Yeah, oh, that’s really incredible. Well, and there’s a part of me too that wonders— I mean obviously, I feel like in this aspect of the Supper Club that food becomes sort of a cultural ambassador, right, that allows people to sort of understand each other better. But do you also feel, having experienced a lot of the food that LA has to offer, that maybe there’s also a degree to which it’s more like, would you say it’s more authentic than when it’s a restaurant that is in place, and they have to serve a certain—
EVAN: I don’t like the word “authentic” because I just think authenticness is really what’s happening in your house.
CARMEN: Mm.
EVAN: And in so many of these cultures, they think what’s happening in their house is authentic, but three doors down, it’s not authentic.
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
EVAN: So, that’s not a good road to go down. No, I think it’s more, I think it’s much more grounded. The thing I love the best about it is there are people who need to become integrated into our communities. In our capitalist society, often the way to do that is through a money exchange for a service. And then that leads to a deeper interaction, which then leads to colleagueship or friendship. And I just think that if you’re gonna buy food from somebody, and you can buy from X super established, already very successful, doing well, have friends in community, or Y recently arrived, incredible cooking chops, need to make money to build their center here in the city, I mean, just do it. It’s such an easy, it’s such low-hanging fruit. And especially at a time when you read the newspaper and you feel so powerless, this is something so small, but it’s real.
CARMEN: Yeah. Do you think it’s making that dent? Do you feel like you see—
EVAN: Oh yeah, definitely. Yes, because of course it does. Every time one of these families gets another gig where they’re doing another job, it gives them more financial stability and gives them more pride and more understanding too that there is a part of the United States that is welcoming.
CARMEN: Mm.
EVAN: Which I think now is a good story to tell.
CARMEN: The DNA of the Supper Club is that it isn’t about food. It’s about serving a higher mission and lifting up every single person who’s involved in the process. It’s about expanding opportunity and increasing connection. It’s about social change that can be dished out in a way that reminds resettling families that they have the support of their neighbors and leaves Miry’s List supporters wanting to heap even more of their own time, energy, and resources onto the organization’s plate.
CHRISTY: Yeah, it’s no day is the same. There’s a lot that goes into it. Usually when people will approach, they approach Miry and I first like a corporation or a private party. And then we sort of negotiate when and the time, and we fill them in on pricing. Our model, it’s not like a catering model. It’s a social impact experience model. So, in the pricing, there’s pricing to pay the chef family. It also includes a part of that that goes back to Miry’s list to help us enroll new families, which is about five a week at this point. Then there’s a fee for Supper Club and our coordination and then a fiscal sponsor fee. So, there’s quite a bit that goes into the per-person rate, and we sort of knock that out with them.
And then once we have that all nailed down, then we see which family’s available, which family’s a good fit for the client, the venue. And then with the power of WhatsApp and a translator— So, I have an Arabic-speaking, he’s actually a graduate student in Claremont. He’s on these group chats with me. And so, I’ll basically be able to say like, “Hey, we have an event coming up September 14th, this many people. Here it is, Can you do it?” And then he translates that all into Arabic, and then he acts as our middle guy. And then we have to plan the menu, and that’s gotten fairly streamlined now. I mean, now I’m pretty much an expert in Middle Eastern and Afghani food, so. [Laughs.] And we have menus that we’ve used before, so we can just say like, “Hey, what about let’s use the menu that we used this date?” And so, it’s a lot. Sometimes I’ll meet with them in person if it’s a more complicated event, but we do a lot over WhatsApp. So, yeah, that’s kind of how it runs.
CARMEN: Awesome! Well, and you sort of talked about social impact experience versus a catering model. What’s that guiding vision of a social impact experience? You know, you’re like, these are the things I know I want to get done with every single event.
CHRISTY: Mmhmm. Well, I think, you know what Miry and I tell folks is, we’re not running a catering business. That’s not at all, that’s not part of the mission. The mission is, like we’ve said, is to unify and come together as a community to welcome our new neighbors as we share a meal. And Miry comes in and usually speaks at the events. Often our families will speak, especially Basheer from Afghanistan who is fluent in English and can really tell his story, which is extremely powerful. So, it really is this package of we’re going to provide you with this experience that not only you get a meal, you’re creating an impact because you’re allowing this family to have a salary. You’re supporting Miry’s List by supporting her organization that welcomes five new families a week.
MIRY: I mean just far as fundraising goes, we have identified that Los Angeles is the appropriate market for a social impact food experience. And that is now how I think of the Supper Club, as before I thought about it as a way for families to meet some new people and make some money. Now I think about it as an experience that can actually bring people together and is bringing people together on a massive scale. And then fast forward two years, we’ve now sold out over 50 events. And so, I know that people really want to experience this, and that’s been really impactful. And we’re also able to see, just from a reporting perspective, the wages that we’ve paid out to resettling chefs in the last two years, I think it’s close to a $100,000 now. And that is just amazing!
CARMEN: The impacts of these events are way more tangible, concrete, and important than my emotional catharsis. They’re fueling a movement and engaging even more people in the critical work Miry’s List does. In fact, the best indicators of the Supper Club success are the stories of its primary beneficiaries: the families cooking the food that define these experiences.
MIRY: I mean number one, it is a source of income. We have the entire financing structure of our Supper Club is designed to make sure that the family is going to be able to earn enough to actually move the needle for them. And actually what we look for, especially with private event partners like Participant Media, is that we look for continuing events. So, it’s not a one off; it’s a series. And so, we do both. We do both styles. And for our families to be able to have ongoing income, it means that moms are able to enroll in college, and they know that their rent is going to be paid. And having that consistent income is very helpful. So, just on a financial level, it’s very helpful.
But then there is the element of coming into a room where people really wanna welcome you, and you are the star. And a lot of times at our events, we have the chef or a member of the chef’s families speak about their family’s experience, to talk about the food. It’s just, there’s something really amazing about picking the brain of a really experienced chef who has a completely different cultural background. I think it really excites people, and then that excitement is really fulfilling to our families who, they’re coming through a migration experience. And migration experiences are unique, but they all have something in common where you become, you’re a number. You have to stand in line. You have to wait. You often don’t know how long the current phase you’re in will last and when the next phase will begin.
We hear stories of families who got on the plane. They hear they’re gonna be resettled in America. They get on a plane. They think they’re going to Michigan, and then they get off the plane, and they’re in California! And literally not having any kind of knowledge of what’s to come, what will be, not having consent about your life, not being able to make decisions, it can be dehumanizing. And I don’t use that word lightly. And this experience of coming into a room and showing off your family history and culture and meeting so many American people that wanna welcome you, it is healing, and it can be transformative.
We just added on a new element, literally in the last two weeks. We started offering coaching with a public speaking coach to all of our chefs. And building the confidence and the ability to speak and capture an entire room with who you are and your experience, it directly counteracts a dehumanizing migration experience.
CARMEN: The Supper Club, for example, gave the Kanjos a new sense of community here in Southern California as well as opportunities to see the loved ones they were missing from back home.
CHRISTY: So, yeah. So, I connected with that family, honestly because of the Supper Club.
CARMEN: [Laughs.]
CHRISTY: They, at that point, they were working with a local church was sort of helping them in the initial phases of resettlement, but I had heard that they had made food. And so, it was because of Supper Club that sort of our relationship started. Their story is very similar to a lot of the families. They are from Homs, Syria, and their house, they tried to stay as long as they could because Abdul owned the salon. Abdul’s one of 17. He has 10 brothers and seven sisters. So, they have a huge family that they wanted to really stay with. But then one night, their house was hit by a tanker, and they just realized it’s unsafe. So, I think about 30 of them, of the Kanjo line—cousins, uncles, whatever—fled to Damascus, which is the capital. And they sort of roamed a little bit there and then again, just realized this isn’t working. This is unsafe. And from there, they went to the border and then waited and then fled across the border to Jordan where they declared themselves refugees with UNHCR. Which that’s a tough choice. Families have to come to that point of saying, all right, I’m declaring refugee status.
I think that that’s one thing people don’t understand is like, it’s a hard choice to say I’m leaving my country, I’m declaring myself as a refugee, and I don’t know where I’ll end up. It’s very anxiety-provoking and obviously. So, they were in Jordan for four years going through the process of interviews and fingerprinting. The refugee population is the most-vetted population that comes into our country. They finished that process. And then in 2016 in the summer, they came to southern California. And they’ve been here ever since.
And one of our biggest success stories was with Maaysa and Abdul Kanjo. So, they have been doing this monthly event now for two years, and they’ve also been getting sort of side events on their own in the Claremont area, in the Arabic community that they’re part of and whatnot. So, they’ve become really skilled at being able to produce food for large quantities of people. They have five kids. Only four of them are in the United States. Their oldest daughter, when they fled Syria, she was already married. So, when they fled to Jordan, when they left Syria, she went to Saudi Arabia with her new husband. That was seven years ago, and that was the last time they saw her. They’re still in contact, but because of the travel ban, she can’t visit here ’cause of her Syrian passport. So, ever since I’ve met them, they talk about Huda a lot. “We need to see her. We need to see her. It’s been so long. It’s been so long.” She’s since had three kids that they had not met. And I mean with the power of FaceTime and WhatsApp, it helps, but obviously it’s not like holding your grandbaby.
So, they’ve been working really hard with Supper Club. And I didn’t even know this, but they had been saving some of the money that they had been making. And then in this past April, they got a 30-day visa, a pilgrimage visa through the mosque, and they were able to purchase tickets to Saudi Arabia, the two of them and their youngest son. And they flew back and were reunited with her and met their grandkids. And that was from the profits they had made on Supper Club. And they sent us a video of the reunion, and it was just like, I was just balling. It was just—
CARMEN: Yeah, that’s so amazing.
CHRISTY: And so, that was a direct, tangible like, oh my gosh. They got to be reunited with their daughter because of what has happened at Supper Club. And that is exactly the mission, is to make it so that this lifts these families out of just surviving here. And the Kanjos are so grateful, and their daughter who was in Saudi Arabia was messaging me like, “Oh my gosh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They wouldn’t have been able to come had they not made this money.” And so, I mean that is a huge example of the power of this model and the power of Supper Club.
CARMEN: Supper Clubs aren’t just popping up in Los Angeles. Refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrant families are sharing meals with new neighbors in cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, New York, and Boston. And organizations like the United Tastes of America are even serving up support for these families across the country. But Miry and Christy’s model has already made a uniquely massive impact on the city that their families now call home.
MIRY: We learned really quickly that Los Angeles was going to be the ideal market to launch something like the New Arrival Supper Club just based on ticket sales. The first event sold out in, I think, three hours. And the tickets were, I think, $75 each. And we were blown away. And we also have continued to see that level of sellout for all of our events. And it was about a year into doing these dinners that we had the idea of expanding on the dinner experience specifically here in Los Angeles and developing a program that could make it really easy for anyone in any neighborhood in Los Angeles to get involved with our families. And from that our program, Welcome Neighbor, was born. And we applied for LA 2050. It’s a $200,000 grant for ideas that make Los Angeles a better place to eat, work, live, play, or create or connect. And we applied in the connect category, and we won. It was an open vote.
And so, winning LA 2050 turned the lights on for Welcome Neighbor. We got started immediately. That program launched in January of this year, January, 2019. And since then, through Supper Clubs and trainings and workshops and neighborhood council events and adopting resolutions, we have already activated over 70,000 Angelenos specifically around the Welcome Neighbor concept to make Los Angeles a more welcoming city. Ultimately, we would like Welcome Neighbor to become a framework that any city could adopt to become more welcoming for the families resettling there.
CARMEN: Yeah. And what does that framework look like?
MIRY: So, there’s four steps. The first step is learning about the experience. And so, that is through attending one of our events or trainings, just learning about what it’s like to resettle in America. We have, in L.A., we’re really lucky to have a neighborhood council system that is funded by our City Council. There are neighborhood councils in over 100 neighborhoods in Los Angeles. And so, we partnered with the neighborhood council system. Empower LA is the name of the department in City Hall. And we have so far have had 14 neighborhood councils enroll in this program. Our goal was 10, by the way. And so, we’ve exceeded that goal. And so, we’re offering the opportunity on a city-wide scale of learning about the experience. We also have a resolution that neighborhoods are adopting called the Welcome Neighbor Resolution that basically declares the neighborhood a safe and welcoming place for all. That’s available on our website at Miryslist.org/welcomeneighbor.
And the next step is participating in activations and appointing a welcoming liaison. And so, we already have something like 22 welcoming liaisons set up across all of these councils across the city. And they’re participating in activations, which are ways of getting their stakeholders, their neighbors actively involved in welcoming resettling families.
CARMEN: It helps, of course, that Angelenos are so clearly craving the kind of social justice Miry’s List is serving up.
CARMEN: Is there a reason you think that that might be? Is there a reason people in L.A. are, for lack of a better term, maybe hungry for that?
EVAN: Well, I was gonna say we’re so hungry. I mean I think the people here are so used to ad hoc food experiences now because we’re the land of the taco truck, land of the pop up. We’re used to going to unusual places to eat and meet people. And we’re used to participating in these like…. I mean, the word pop-up is so good because it’s not just a food pop up, but it’s like a little community springs up. And then it goes away, but it leaves traces, right? I mean you can meet somebody that becomes a friend and somebody you call on later. And I just think we’re so used to it now, and everybody’s always looking for the new. But this is a way of grounding that experience in something real.
I just think the takeaway for me from the Supper Club is really as Angelenos, as people who love to eat, we all spend our dollars. And you know how people are always saying vote with your fork when it comes to sustainability issues? Well, this is another way to vote with your fork, but for immigration issues and just for being a good neighbor.
CARMEN: Be a good neighbor. That request sounds so simple, but Miry and her team are proving it to be more powerful than we ever could’ve imagined. What they have built with the Supper Club is an enduring reminder that deliberate acts of kindness can transform entire communities and foster culture change in every neighborhood. of how powerful that one guiding principle can be—and how close it can bring any community.
What has this experience really shown you in terms of, you know?
CHRISTY: I think that it’s shown me so many things. It’s shown me how, one, how resilient our families are and how dedicated they are to making their life in America work. They are the hardest working people I know. A lot of events, you know, they’ll stay up all night preparing food, like not sleep at all. And then they go to the event ,and then they’re on. And that is driven by them wanting to provide for their children. And again, looping back, moms helping moms. They left everything they had, all their belongings and most of their family. And if you ask any of our families, why did you do that, the moms always say—and the Dads—“We did this for our kids. We’re going to struggle here. It’s going to be hard for us. But they will have the opportunity to thrive.” And you see it. Of the families I serve in Claremont, we had four Claremont high school graduates this year of Claremont Canopy families. Four girls, [laughs] and they’re all going to college. And it was like the pride in those families watching those girls get that diploma is that is why they’re here.
So, it’s taught me that. It’s taught me how this could apply to all sorts of populations. But with the refugee population, they just need someone to stand with them and advocate on their behalf. And by Miry and Katie and myself coming up with the Supper Club model, which is out of the box and unique and with lots of moving parts, and we’ve been able to change the lives of our families. And so, I think I’ve learned that there’s just power in just one person saying, “Let’s try this.” And that was Katie when this was founded. She called Miry and said, “Let’s try this.” And a week later, they had a pop up in a backyard for Valentine’s Day. And now, we had had over 50 events and distributed like $60,000 worth of salaries to families. So, it’s the power of one idea. At every supper Club event and Miry’s List event, it really boils down to the power of one person and one idea and the impact it can make on hundreds and hundreds of people.
[theme music]
CARMEN: Okay, folks. That’s all for this installment of Popaganda by Bitch Media. This episode was produced by Cher Vincent and hosted by me: feminist writer, editor, and activist Carmen Rios, as part of our HEAT season. Our jingle is by Mucks & Owen Wuerker. Today’s guests were Maaysa Kanjo, Miry Whitehill, Christy Anderson, and Evan Kleiman.
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