Catholic Charities to welcome 800 Afghan refugees in coming weeks

Catholic Charities, as the sole refugee resettlement agency for Oklahoma, has been asked by the US State Department to receive 800 Afghan citizens to the Tulsa Area. Made up of approximately 200 families, these refugees have been rescued from the difficult situation that has unfolded at the Kabul airport. The families in question have assisted our US servicemen and were selected by the US Government to come to the United States. They have been screened and vetted from a health and security perspective.

Catholic Charities expects these individuals to arrive in Tulsa over the next six weeks but the program could stretch out until March of 2022. These individuals will be provided with all that basics needed to live in our community by Catholic Charities in cooperation with many nonprofit organizations and faith groups. We will work in tandem as a community to welcome those who have done so much for our country and set them on a path of success in the United States.

Catholic Charities knows that many people would like to welcome and say thank you to these Afghan families and has provided a means to do so on their website at cceok.org/refugees. On this page, there are online forms for signing up to make a financial gift, donate household items or to volunteer in various ways.

While Catholic Charities and others will need to assist these Afghan families for a short period of time, we are quite confident that they will make our community much stronger in future.

For more information, go to cceok.org/refugees.

We will hold a press conference Tuesday, September 7, at 10am. Feel free to join us at our main Tulsa campus: 2450 N. Harvard Ave., Tulsa, OK 74115, in front of the main building.