Generous donation helps extend services for Utah refugee families

SALT LAKE CITY — A generous donation has given a lifeline to Utah refugee families who were in danger of losing critical services.

KSL TV first reported earlier in April on the refugee resettlement program at Catholic Community Services that was in danger of shuttering amid federal funding cuts. Officials said families were at risk of losing their housing and becoming homeless.

Since then, things have changed for the better. The organization announced Monday it has raised $1.5 million to maintain services for around 300 refugee families who have settled in the state in the last two years.

Most of that donation came from one person who asked to remain anonymous.

Aden Batar, director of migration and refugee services for Catholic Community Services, said the money will go to refugee families who are already here in Utah.

“We will make sure that they stay in their homes. We will make sure that they have a job so they can continue paying their bills,” Batar said. “We will make sure that their children succeed in school, and we will make sure that these families become productive members of our society by removing any barriers that come in their way.”

But Catholic Community Services said it still needs help raising an additional $1 million to have enough money to serve those refugee families through 2029. Donations can be made on the nonprofit’s website.

Shortly after taking office in January, President Donald Trump suspended the country’s refugee program, stopping refugees from coming to the United States. Batar said he hopes that program will resume, but for now, the focus is on serving families who are already in Utah.

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Batar said the programs at Catholic Community Services aim to help refugee families become “self-sufficient” and not rely on public benefits. Batar is a refugee himself from Somalia who came to Utah in the early 1990s.

“Utah has always been a welcoming place,” he said. “It is a community of caring.”

Esther Pinda, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who arrived in Utah in December, said Catholic Community Services is helping her family adjust to life in a new, unfamiliar place.

“Without these services,” she said, “we could not survive.”