Carrie Sand:

In October 2015, at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis, the parent community at Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School did something no other Jewish Day School in Toronto had done: they decided to sponsor a refugee family.

The idea started when Carrie Sand, a parent working in social justice, and her husband, a refugee lawyer at the time, felt they could not watch the crisis unfold from the sidelines. With support from the principal, they put a note in the weekly school bulletin, inviting parents and friends of the school community to a meeting.

The response was fulsome, immediate, urgent, and full of heart. The Paul Penna DJDS was a community already shaped by values of justice and action—it was in the school community's DNA. They met once, made a plan, and set a goal to raise $36,000 within two weeks to support a family for one year upon arrival - double chai, a symbol of life and good luck in Hebrew. No committees. No hesitation. Just momentum.

Working with JIAS as sponsors, the Paul Penna DJDS community was in the position to support a family: Farah, whose husband was recently killed in a bombing, her daughter and twin boys. Farah already had a cousin in Canada who had been helping relatives escape from the danger in Syria, and the Paul Penna DJDS group felt that the support of family when she arrived would be important.

A member of the group had access to a storage unit, and the parents all worked together, filling it in one day with furniture, bedding, dishes, and toys. When Farah and her children finally arrived, Paul Penna, DJDS' parents, and students were waiting for them at the airport with backpacks filled with stuffed animals and art supplies for her kids.

They found Farah an apartment in Scarborough, close to her family. The Paul Penna DJDS community helped her move in, carefully letting her choose where things went. The Canadian children took their new Syrian friends to the park. The help was real, practical, and immediate.

Language was a challenge throughout the process, but every time Farah saw someone from the school, she would say, "merci, merci." She was not literate, even in her own language. This limited her communication, which often required verbal interaction and the assistance of interpreters.

But Farah was resourceful and found her way. Over time, she reached out less to the Paul Penna DJDS for help. She was building a life. And that was the point. It began as a response to crisis—and became a shared chapter of action, belonging, and humanity—written by parents, lived by students, and remembered by all.

*Name modified for privacy