Volunteer helps immigrants resettle
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Rev. Doug Heagy has a lot of good things to say about Sara Dougherty. One is, “Good luck reaching her!”
Because he knows how much this Mt. Lebanon woman and member of his Mt. Lebanon Lutheran Church volunteers to people in need in the region.
Ask him to narrow it, and he is effusive about all the hours and empathy she puts in each month for the Himalayan Foundation USA, which she helped found in 2016 to help Bhutanese and Nepali immigrants in Western Pennsylvania.
She’d already jumped in to help a family of new Bhutanese refugees — both parents deaf, as many people from Nepal are, with two young children — get settled in Mt. Lebanon, doing everything from tutoring to helping in their garden.
Now she helps many others through the local foundation, which gives special attention to training and caring for individuals with disabilities and elderly people.
She does everything from raising funds to provide these new Americans sign language classes to taking them on zoo and farm field trips.
She also gives of herself by being on call for a Larimer crisis nursery, Jeremiah’s Place; mentors a city middle school student; and drives a regular route for 412 Food Rescue. Pastor Heagy knows she was raised this way — her late father was a pastor who fought for civil rights — but says, “She’s nonstop!”