How four women in Greenwich led one of the biggest community efforts to help Syrian refugees

One photo of a child washed up on a beach triggered what the Greenwich residents described as a ‘military campaign’ to help other children abroad

They shipped a container measuring 7,700 cubic feet (Anne Ferguson)

One of the largest grassroots, community-led efforts to send donations to Syrian refugee children happened in the unlikeliest of places.

In well-heeled Greenwich, Connecticut, the town of Donald Trump’s former country estate, four friends decided they could not sit back any longer and ignore what they described as “the largest humanitarian crisis of their time”.

What started as a plan to pack extra suitcases on a trip to Europe evolved into a 40-foot-long container measuring 7,700 cubic feet, full of provisions for children in refugee camps in Macedonia.

Anne Ferguson, Margaret Anker, Sue Parkin and Kirsten MacDonald all live in the town and have children in local schools. Their project was not easy, however. It was only though a tenuous connection - one of the women’s nanny’s friends, Katerina Ilievska, who was working for the Nobel Peace-prize nominated organization SOS Children's Villages in Skopje, Macedonia - that they could even start to organize sending aid.

“This is the humanity crisis in our lifetime and could potentially change the demographic of the continent we grew up on,” said Ms Anker. “We were very careful when we were asked questions [from local people]. We said it was a humanitarian issue. We are not raising money or providing visas.”

Not everyone has the same intention to help.

Referring to Syrian children refugees coming to Greenwich, presidential candidate Donald Trump said in February: “I can look them in the face and say you can’t come here,” and suggested their parents might be ISIS members.

It might seem telling to some that the four women who decided to help these children are non-US citizens - they were all born in Europe and South Africa.


 From left to right: Kirsten MacDonald, Margaret Anker, Anne Ferguson and Sue Parkin
 (Anne Ferguson)

Although anti-Muslim feeling increased after 9/11, the volunteers did not feel any aversion to helping refugees. Ms Anker was six months pregnant when one of the Twin Towers knocked down her husband’s office next door - he was at home at the time - and Ms Ferguson was also in New York in 2001.

Terrorism had the potential to change sentiment around their efforts. The original deadline to get donations was 30 October 2015, then it was pushed back to 15 November, two days after terrorists attacked Paris.

“Some people said we were very lucky to do it now as it might have been a different response afterwards,” said Ms Ferguson.

Little help came from the office of their Democrat Governor Daniel Malloy as it was already overstretched with helping Syrian refugees to settle in the state, Ms Anker said. Around 90 Syrians have moved to Connecticut since last summer, as reported by Courant. In fact, Mr Malloy has been praised for speaking out to welcome Syrians and fight against more hate-filled rhetoric from the likes of Mr Trump.

But the volunteers said their mission was nothing to do with politics or religion, and that they received tremendous support from schools, pupils and their parents, and even mosques, synagogues and churches.

One family even wrote a cheque to ship the container, which cost over $4,000.

They collected more than 16,000 Mylar blankets, a low-weight blanket made of reflective, plastic sheeting designed to reduce body heat loss, as well as clothing and shoes.

“It’s easy to write a cheque,” said Ms Ferguson. “It felt like people were waiting for us to come up with the good idea.”


 Kirsten MacDonald and Margaret Anker sort out hundreds of boxes of donations
 (Anne Ferguson)

Not everyone gave items that could be of use. That included a kitchen knife and a bottle of bleach, Ms Anker said, but she laughed it off and claimed people were “just clearing out” their cupboards.

Their children, who are at different schools, gave presentations to their classmates on the subject.

“I’ve lived in a a lot of places and always been welcomed and if me or my children were not [welcomed] I would have been distraught,” said Ms Ferguson. "It’s very important to involve our kids and see it all the way through.”

The campaign was inspired after the four friends saw a picture last year of a small boy who was washed up on a beach in Greece.

“People can spend eight years in refugee camps,” said Ms Anker. “It always comes back to the children. A whole generation is getting lost.”

The volunteer group received word in January that the donations had been received, after months of anxiety that their container might not make it through customs or be intercepted en route.

“I’ve seen the pictures of the loading on your end, but, to be honest, I couldn’t even imagine the amount you managed to raise and ship until I saw it with my own eyes… It is impressive, it is incredible,” Ms Ilievska wrote in an e-mail, as reported by Greenwich Time.

“The stars have to align for something like this to happen,” said Ms Anker.

They are now looking to start a new project to build schools in Lebanese refugee camps in association with a foundation called Kayany.

Connecticut has one of the highest number of Syrian refugees in the US but efforts to resettle more families has been slow.

President Obama may miss his target of welcoming 10,000 refugees to the US by October 2016.

Would local residents be so happy to help if more Syrian refugees arrived to live in Greenwich?

Ms Ferguson and Ms Anker looked at each other, hesitant to reply.

“We were helped by so many different groups of people, so I hope they would welcome them,” said Ms Ferguson.