Like most seven-year-olds, Zen Alhelal doesn’t have a lot of money. Still, the newcomer from Syria took all the coins he could find, filled his piggy bank and donated them to the relief effort for people affected by the Fort McMurray wildfire.
He was among the crowd of people in Saskatoon’s Civic Square Monday evening. The local refugee community, particularly newly-arrived Syrians, offered up food, henna tattoos and cricket demonstrations for donations to the Canadian Red Cross.
“From my experience, the most difficult thing for anybody in this world is to lose his house,” said event organizer Mohammad Alhelal through a translator.
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Having experienced that loss first-hand, he and dozens of others rallied to support as many as 90,000 people displaced by forest fires in Alberta.
Alhelal hopes small donations add up “to rebuild Fort McMurray and to help them stand on their feet again.”
The Saskatoon Open Door Society, a refugee and immigrant settlement agency, helped raise awareness for the event. However, executive director Ali Abukar said the refugees came up with the idea themselves.
“They are amazed by the support and the welcoming aspect of the Canadian people and they wanted to do something from the get go,” Abukar said.
The gathering offered newcomers a sense of empowerment, which Abukar said is one of the goals of the Open Door Society.
“It’s an opportunity too for them to interact with other people and to show their sense of community and how they want to give back to the community,” Abukar said.
One hundred per cent of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross, which has raised about $90 million to date to help Alberta wildfire evacuees.
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