AID GROUP TRYING TO FILL IN GAPS FOR AGHAN ARRIVALS

San Diego Afghan Refugees Aid Group holds second donation distribution event Sunday

Yama Meerzada dug through boxes of diapers on Sunday morning outside of a hotel in La Jolla, confirming in Pashto with the parents of a 1-year-old which size they needed.

The family was one of 20 attending a donation distribution event by San Diego Afghan Refugees Aid Group in a grassy space next to the hotel parking lot. The group formed as Afghanistan fell under Taliban rule last year, anticipating many Afghan newcomers would be arriving in San Diego.

Meerzada said that when he saw news footage of a woman in Afghanistan

handing her child over a wall to a U.S. Marine in August, he felt like he had to do something to help.

“That literally shook me,” he said.

He found that many in San Diego’s Afghan and Afghan American community felt the same way and soon the aid group was formed. Initially, its founders thought that it would exist only temporarily, ending its work by December at the latest. But they soon realized that the amount of new arrivals paired with short-staffed resettlement agencies and an ongoing housing shortage meant that many would need longterm community support.

They offer food and clothing donations, as well as furniture and household items after families manage to move into homes. Volunteers transport families to medical appointments and translate conversations with the doctors into Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan. The organization is also connecting newcomers with jobs in local restaurants and other businesses.

On Sunday, the group hosted its second donation distribution event, with more than a dozen volunteers setting up a series of canopies and tables filled with toys and clothing at one of the hotels currently housing many Afghan families. ICNA Relief provided bags of groceries for the families as well. About 120 people — parents and children — showed up from their hotel rooms to get help.

The family of seven that Meerzada was guiding around the donation tables had been living in a hotel room in San Diego for about a month after spending four months on a military base in Indiana.

Because of San Diego’s housing shortage, resettlement agencies have long struggled to place refugees into long-term living situations quickly. That challenge only grew more intense with the sudden arrival of hundreds of Afghans late last year.

Shafiqullah Fazli, the father of

K.C. ALFRED U-T Zulfar Shaker (left) and other volunteers from the San Diego Afghan Refugees Aid Group sort through clothes during a distribution event in La Jolla. Clothing, food and toys were available for families that have been living in hotels.