Sheridan Road on the North Side. Photo: Warren LeMay from Chicago, IL, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, known as IRIM, will mark a quarter century of resettling refugees in the Chicago area with a fundraiser on Thursday, April 26. The event, Celebrating 25 Years of Hope, starts at 6 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church, 5649 N. Sheridan Road.
Organizers expect more than 200 guests, drawn from the refugee and immigrant communities IRIM serves and from the congregations and volunteers who support them.
The program
The evening mixes performance with personal history. Refugees will share their own stories of arriving in Chicago. There will be an awards ceremony and food from many of the cultures represented in IRIM’s caseload.
Music includes Simon and Doleila, a band led by Simon Kashama and Doleila Perez that plays in the styles of central Africa, and IRIM’s Refugee Youth band. Other song and dance acts from around the world are on the bill.
Admission is free. Guests are encouraged to donate to support IRIM’s work.
Why it matters on the North Side
Uptown and its neighbors have been one of the main landing spots for refugees in Chicago for decades. Families from Southeast Asia, East Africa, Eastern Europe and elsewhere have settled near Argyle Street, Broadway and Sheridan Road, opening shops and restaurants that now define parts of the neighborhood. Resettlement agencies such as IRIM help with the first months: housing, English classes, job searches and enrollment in school.
That work has a direct line to the local economy. Many of the small businesses on Argyle were started by people who arrived as refugees.
Linh Tran-Whitaker covers Argyle Street, dining and community life.
