Immigrant & Refugee Resource Collaborative

IRRC History

 

Greater Lansing has been privileged to host two organizations that have been engaged in the resettlement of refugees for many decades — St. Vincent Catholic Charities, serving family units and single adult refugees, and Samaritas (formerly Lutheran Social Services of Michigan) serving unaccompanied refugee minors and unaccompanied youth. 

 

In the early 2000s, staff from these organizations formed a coalition to broaden the safety net for refugees facing challenges in their resettlement. This coalition included many other key entities offering services important to the population.  

 

Soon thereafter, Ingham County’s Power of We Consortium (PWC) focused its efforts on harnessing the collective social capital and diversity of over 200 human services, nonprofit, governmental, faith-based, and business sector stakeholders. Its goal was to promote systems-reform and achieve positive results for local communities.  PWC leadership approached the refugee coalition, with a time-limited offer of financial and management support, to expand its impact by becoming one of the then 12 collaboratives of the PWC. Consequently, the new refugee collaborative was able to expand its membership, create agreed upon goals, a basic structure, and begin to interact regularly with multiple diverse collaboratives focused on the economy, education, mental health/substance abuse, housing, etc.

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One of the earliest decisions made by the refugee collaborative was to expand its focus from refugees exclusively, to immigrants more widely, and thus the name Immigrant and Refugee Resource Collaborative (IRRC) was born. Early successes included organizing community-wide ESL classes to assure availability of courses at various times, locations, and ability levels, and to make this information easily accessible.

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Today, the IRRC is a network of over 50 stakeholders from the nonprofit, business, education, faith, public, and private sectors. Because we believe those impacted by our work should lead our work,  in 2015 the IRRC made a strategic decision to create an Advisory Council of New US Americans to lead the collaborative. This council, in partnership with the wider network, helps identify needs, optimize opportunities, meet challenges, and support Greater Lansing as a welcoming region for long term and new residents.

 

We thank and honor those who championed the work that brought us to this place, and we hold central New US American voices who help lead us and challenge us to learn and grow. 

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--Written in partnership with Peggy Roberts, Co-Founder of the IRRC.