Refugees face a steep learning curve when they come to the United States, and Restoring Dignity is passionate about providing both the resources and knowledge to set them up for success. Founder Hannah Vlach and volunteer Liz Hagestad discuss the massive impact Restoring Dignity is having and how they're showing Jesus' love to an often forgotten population.
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Refugees face a steep learning curve when they come to the United States, and Restoring Dignity is passionate about providing both the resources and knowledge to set them up for success. Founder Hannah Vlach and volunteer Liz Hagestad discuss the massive impact Restoring Dignity is having and how they're showing Jesus' love to an often forgotten population.
Stay up to date by following us on your favorite social networks.
Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
Have questions or comments? Email us at contact@kingofkings.org.
Thanks for listening!
Hey there, king of Kings family. This is Dan Hoppin, the director of small groups here at King of Kings, and I'm excited today to continue our all in spotlights series today. So each fall, king of Kings undergoes a three week all in campaign that really prioritizes loving, serving and giving, and during that time we raise a special offering where all of the contributions go to organizations throughout our community that we, that we've vetted, that we've interviewed, that we just absolutely love. We've seen that they're making a big impact and we want to be a part of that and we want to help.
Speaker 1:And today we get to talk about restoring dignity. This is an awesome organization that strives to help refugees in Omaha by providing a variety of different programs geared to help support families in their homes. To tell us more about that is Hannah Vlock, who is restoring dignity founder and executive director, and Liz Haggastad, who is a member of our congregation here at King of Kings and is just a very valued and active member or volunteer and restoring dignity. Words are hard Guys. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Now, just real quick, for first people who are listening to this, would you guys mind just introducing yourself, so we can distinguish voices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my name is Hannah Vlock Liz Haggastad.
Speaker 1:All right, we got that out of the way. So now restoring dignity. Super cool organization. You guys have a really great mission. But for someone who's not heard about, is, or is maybe hearing about it for the first time right now, how would you describe it to them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so restoring dignity serves refugees in the Omaha area. We're basically filling in the gaps and holes for when families get resettled. By resettlement we mean families are living in refugee camps and they're brought to the United States to start their life new here but they only receive 90 days of support from the federal government and then they're on their own. So imagine that.
Speaker 1:Imagine going 90 days. That's like nothing.
Speaker 2:90 days, imagine going to a country where you don't speak the language, you don't even have a social security number and you're expected to be completely selfish in 90 days. So our story and dignity comes in, and we're teaching people how to acclimate to life in America, because it's very different when you have grown up with no plumbing, no electricity, no running water, no refrigeration, and then you're put into an environment where you have all of these things, simple things like learning how to use a thermostat or understanding what a smoke detector is. These things are very challenging to families, and so we're teaching people how to live here and how to live here well, and we also provide advocacy for families too, because unfortunately, there are some people who do take advantage of refugees, and we want to make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:Hannah, I know that this is a very personal project for you and it's it's not what you were planning to do originally when you started your class. That you know, I think I think you were going into, like the medical field.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What was it about refugees that really kind of sparked that desire in you and drove you to start restoring dignity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of a long story. I mean I can tell it if you want, or I can give you the story in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Let's give the medium version of the story. So maybe not the long story, but also not just like one sentence. I want to hear your heart behind this thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it actually started when I was 16 years old. I wanted to volunteer in the community and the Salvation Army needed volunteers. So I started volunteering and at that time there were a lot of refugees coming in who were South Sudanese and the Salvation Army needed help. And I said, okay, I'll help. So I started working with refugee children from South Sudan three times a week as a teenager, all through high school, and I did that for four years, and so that's how I got introduced to refugees. I had never heard about a refugee before that point in my life.
Speaker 2:And then in my early 20s, one of the girls that I had mentored ended up committing suicide, and so I went over to her family's house and just to pay my respects and to find out when the funeral was going to be, and they were living in total, abject poverty and it was not a good environment to grieve in. And so myself and some family and friends got together and we said, okay, what can we do to help this family? And so we came up with this idea where we would do a home makeover, where we would bring the family everything that they needed so they could grieve in a dignified manner. And we called. We put up a free website online. We called it restoring dignity, and it was supposed to be a one time event, and so we all got together.
Speaker 2:We did a home makeover for this family. The family was completely on board with it and at the end they had a house where they could grieve properly. I mean it's really hard to grieve when you have no sheets on your bed. I mean it's hard to grieve anyway, but when you're living in an environment that is not conducive to any type of thriving or anything, it's just it makes things a lot worse.
Speaker 2:So we did that, and then we had a bunch of furniture that was left over and in a my living room and in my parents' living room when we were like, what are we gonna do with this furniture? And so we found out about another refugee family that was going through a hard time and their children were sleeping on the floor, and we did a home makeover for that family. And then we started getting referrals from caseworkers in the Omaha area who had a lot of other families who were in similar situations. And so for six and a half years I ran the organization as a volunteer. While I was, I worked as a medical social worker first, and then I went back to school to do all my pre-med courses, got accepted to medical school out of state and ended up not going. That's a different story in and of itself but ended up staying in.
Speaker 2:Omaha and restoring dignity just kept growing in the meantime, and so I got pulled on as the first employee, first executive director, in 2018. So it's been five years, and since that time, the last five years, we've served 21,000, over 21,000 refugees.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's been a journey. This is not what I thought I was gonna do with my life, but I'm really happy to be here right now and I'm just happy to be of service.
Speaker 1:Liz, I know that this is an organization that you're very passionate about. What drew you to restoring dignity originally, and what is it about Hannah and her mission that has kept you committed to this for so long?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so before you were the executive director and she was in that volunteer place, I went to one of those home makeovers and so I think it was like through Facebook or social media she would just reach out and say, hey, this is what we're doing. Anyone that can help, here's ways to volunteer. And so a friend and I saw it and went down and I had no idea what I was getting involved in, like no idea at all, and so I just knew that like my heart was to serve and I wanted to check it out. I had seen some things online. So and that was really the first time that I understood all of the different sides of Omaha, omaha, nebraska Like there are so many, there's so much out there outside of the bubble that you live in and that you create for yourself Walking into an apartment, a little tiny apartment that probably had 10 people living in it, and they don't know.
Speaker 3:They just didn't know how to clean or have any of the tools to clean the apartment. So I remember just walking into really just a very dirty situation, and so the way that Restoring Dignity does it is you take everything out, you clean everything like crazy clean, and then we put everything back in, like all new things, you know, everything that's been donated and everything like that. And then. So that day just stuck with me and then I decided that I wanted to connect with Hannah Like I wanted. I wanted to know Hannah, I wanted to be with you, I wanted to be friends with Hannah.
Speaker 1:I mean, she is pretty fun. I can't see why you'd want to hang out with her.
Speaker 3:So then we just kind of developed a friendship and I would like every so, you know, I'd go and volunteer on things. And then I got kind of deeper into the refugee community. We my family sponsored a family with Lutheran family, services that like for a family that came in as a refugee, and then just continued like sort of my relationship with you and kept supporting Restoring Dignity. And here I am, yeah, I mean like what, six years, seven years?
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 3:I mean it's been a long time yeah.
Speaker 1:What are some examples of the types of programs or ways that Restoring Dignity helps refugees, other than the house cleaning that Liz mentioned?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So our biggest program is our Welcome Home program and we do the in-home education classes. So right now we have two education tracks that we're doing. The first one is healthy home education and we're teaching families how to take care of their home. Because if you have been living in a tent or living in a bamboo home, you've never had drywall, you've never had linoleum floors, you've never had all of these different surfaces to take care of, and in a lot of refugee camps families only have access to one bar of soap.
Speaker 2:When you come to America, there's a lot of soap. You have your dish soap, your dishwasher soap, your laundry soap, you have your hair soap, you have body soap. You have all of this different soap, and no one is teaching families what any of this means. And so I've gone into homes where people are using toilet bowl cleaner with no gloves on to clean everything in their house, because no one's taught them what to do. There was one house we went into and the gentleman was trying to get the grease off his stove and he was pouring bleach all over his stove and he looked at me and he said I just want to get this grease off through an interpreter. He said I just want to get this grease off and I don't know what to use. So every week I go to the store and I pick one thing off the shelf and I try it and nothing has worked. And he had a whole shelf full probably of 20 different products. And that was the moment when I realized, okay, we can do so much better. We have to start teaching people how to live in America, just like if you or I went to another country that was much different than what we're used to. We would want someone to help acclimate us and help train us on what we need to do. So that's our first class, and then the second class is home fire safety. So we do that in partnership with the American Red Cross.
Speaker 2:We're teaching families about fire safety, gas safety. We recently have gone into multiple homes where we bring this like stink bomb solution that smells like sulfur, and we have families smell it so they can understand what natural gas smells like. And we've had several families say oh my gosh, I smell this in my house. They take us to where they smell it. We found a gas leak, get it fixed. We're teaching families how to use fire extinguishers. Just a couple of weeks ago one of our families we had just taught them. They had just gone through a class, they had just gotten their fire extinguisher and they looked out their window that next morning and their neighbor's house had caught on fire, and so they were able to grab their fire extinguisher and they put the fire out, and if they hadn't done that, the house probably would have gone up in flames by the time that the fire department got there. So we're doing that.
Speaker 2:We're teaching people about tornadoes. When people hear the sirens, in a lot of countries that means that there's a bomb that's about to fall, but here it means a tornado. So there are situations where families are hearing the sirens and they think that there's bombs coming. So it's just teaching people how to live here. And then we're about to launch our third set of classes, which are our home owners maintenance education classes, our home classes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, and we are going to teach refugee home owners how to take care of their home, how to change a filter in their HVAC system. We've had families reach out who their entire furnace has gone out because no one ever told them. Hey, there's a filter, you need to change it. And no one changed the filter for six years. So we're going to be teaching people how to maintain their homes, which is going to help Omaha in the long run, because if each individual person takes care of their home, it makes neighborhoods better. So that's our welcome home program.
Speaker 2:We taught over 1,000 classes in home last year and we will be close to 1,500 in home classes this year by the end of this year.
Speaker 2:We also created Omaha's first furniture bank in partnership with the Furniture Project.
Speaker 2:So we used to run a community donation center where families could come and could get furniture, and then, at the beginning of 2022, we partnered with the Furniture Project and we said, hey, what if we created a furniture bank for Omaha where anybody who needs furniture could come and could get it.
Speaker 2:So we were able to get funding for that and we got the keys to an 18,000 square foot warehouse and it is now a fully functioning furniture bank in Omaha, and last year we furnished over 700 homes and this year it will be over 1,000 homes. Wow, yeah, we are exiting that space, because our role in it was to come in and help build the infrastructure and then, once the Furniture Project had enough people to run it, they would take it over. So they're at that point now. So we are exiting, we're moving to the Yates Illuminates building next week, so I'm a little sad to let that one go, but I know it's in good hands and I know the mission will continue there and I mean you're just, you're doing so much good, I think even just in this conversation alone, and I did some prep work coming into this.
Speaker 1:but all the things like I think, liz, you put it perfectly when you talk about we put ourselves in like our personal bubbles and we think everyone understands what we do.
Speaker 1:Just the thought of someone not knowing how to use a fire extinguisher or what the tornado siren means, or that no, I can't use bleach on my stove this all seems so just easy to us. But yeah, if you're from another country and you've never seen this stuff before, of course that's not going to make a lot of sense. And, like you mentioned, I mean they get what like 90 days of support. You can't learn how to live in another country in 90 days. I can't learn anything in 90 days. I mean you can't start a new job and feel good in 90 days.
Speaker 1:So it's it's really amazing what you guys are doing and I'm so glad that we were able to help support you through all. In last year, king and Kings donated $50,000 to restoring dignity. Liz, what was it like to give that check to Hannah? Just knowing not only her and her heart, but just the things that this organization is doing oh, it's such a joy.
Speaker 3:It was honestly one of the best moments ever, just because I know what that money can do for restoring dignity and all of the people that it can serve. It's a great organization that really keeps its overhead really low so that it can serve so many people. And one thing I also wanted to talk about was the one of the things that I loved about restoring dignity or love about it is the ability to do it. The way that we're storing dignity or love about it is the air conditioning. We all know Omaha can get super, super, super hot. Well, of course, a lot of the refugees in Omaha don't have access to air conditioning units in their apartments, and so one of the favorite things that you guys have ever have done, in my opinion, is delivered window units to apartments, to families that couldn't sleep at night because they were so hot. You guys went and delivered and installed everything these window units just so they could have some peace in 105 degree heat.
Speaker 3:So there's just so many programs like that with restoring dignity that they're constant. There's always such a need in the community, and restoring dignity does a great job of seeing the need and then acting on it. So there's so many programs like that, and then I also wanted to go back to the house cleaning. One of the things that restoring dignity did and I was involved in this too is they created these cool tags to put on cleaners in different languages so that they would know, the families would know this is for your tub, this is for cleaning glass, and it was all in their language and it was really nicely tagged, and you don't realize the impact that that has until you're in it and you're seeing it. And so the organization does such a great job, like always pivoting and being just hand in hand with the refugees and really helping them to live a better life, you know. So that's why they came. That's why they came here just to live a better life. So that's what you guys do, yeah.
Speaker 1:Hannah, how did you see the funds from all in? How did you see God use those to bless the refugees here in Omaha?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was amazing. Well, number one we were able to install the first 10 air conditioners for families out of the money that King of Kings gave us, which was amazing. So there was one family where there was an infant in the household and they had no air conditioning and which can actually be fatal when it gets so hot for infants and for elderly people. So we were able to go in and install air conditioners for that family. They were so happy, so that made a huge impact.
Speaker 2:And then some of the funding we used for housing advocacy. So families, for example, if a refrigerator goes out or if their air conditioning goes out or their heat goes out because of the language barrier, sometimes it's really hard to communicate with the landlord. So we will step in and we will advocate for the family in that. So we did that. And then, of course, you guys supported us with the furniture bank and we've been able to furnish homes for families who have nothing. There was one family that came in and they had six people sleeping on one king mattress in their house and they had no other beds. So some of that money went towards them having the ability to get more beds in their house so that they're not sleeping on the floor.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love those individual stories and you guys have done a great job peppering them in throughout this podcast. Can I maybe get one or two more that just pops to the front of your mind of like, oh man, this was a need, or I didn't know this need existed and we visited this family and it really touched our hearts. We were able to help them this way. Are there any other stories like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the last time makeover that we did. The reason that we knew that the family was in need is one of our educators went to teach the family and they found out that the father had gone blind right before COVID. Actually, he got bacterial meningitis no viral meningitis, excuse me and it took his eyesight. And they have eight children. And so they had no beds, no couch, nothing. And the mom is working full-time at a meatpacking plant trying to support eight children, plus her husband, who can't work anymore, who's totally depressed because everything's been taken from him. And so we were able to do a complete home makeover for them, got beds for everyone, got them everything they needed, and we raised enough money from the community that we were able to pay their mortgage for four months Wow which gave them some relief, because when you've got one person working in a meatpacking plant supporting 10 people, it's not enough, and so I think that was an amazing experience for our volunteers and staff to be able to go in and serve the family in that way.
Speaker 1:What about you? Do you have any stories that pop to the front of your mind?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of the last Homemakers that I did that I think maybe King of Kings was involved in this one. We so a lot of the the neighbors come and they like to kind of watch, so they like will come into the apartment and they like to watch us like take everything out, and this time it was pouring rain, do you remember?
Speaker 1:this one, I am pouring rain.
Speaker 3:We had tarps everywhere, so we're getting everything out of the house.
Speaker 3:And then this little girl she was probably like eight or nine.
Speaker 3:She was like she wanted to help, she wanted to help clean and she was one of the little neighbor girls and so she was kind of like hanging out with me a little bit and cleaning and then she was starting to see all of the new Stuff come in, and then I think we even like were able to get like there was another little girl that was living there and we were able to get her like maybe like a cute chalkboard it was something like something cool that she could use as a toy and the, the little girl that was helping me, looked at me and she said do you guys think you could come to my house next?
Speaker 3:And I like I had to turn around and just take a moment because I it's just like the Overwhelming feeling of like there's so much need out there, and and then I get to drive, you know, hop in my car and drive back to the bubble. Sometimes it gets very overwhelming and so, just like she kind of just stuck in my heart where it's like they, they are, they don't, they need all of the hell of the help and all of the love and it's and that's what we're called to do. I think, as human beings and as followers of Christ is to is to help people who need help. So she just kind of always will kind of be in my heart, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So clearly. Restoring dignity has a great mission, making a fantastic Impact in the community. If somebody's listening to this and they're like man, I want to get involved with this. This sounds really cool. How can they either donate or get involved with serving?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many different ways. I mean there's something for everyone. I believe everyone can serve, and so we try to open up as many opportunities as possible. Number one you can sign up to volunteer in our website. We have a variety of different opportunities. When we do our big home makeovers, we need between 80 to 100 volunteers.
Speaker 2:It's not pretty work, it's not. We're going into homes that a lot of times have infestations, bedbugs, cockroaches, and I think that that's a moment to pause too. I mean, we've had people come in who are just like oh my god, there's cockroaches everywhere, and I always take people aside and I always say I know that this is different and I know, you know you're only gonna have to deal with this for two hours, but these families have to live with this, you know, and so it really opens up your eyes to what is going on in this community, especially housing injustice. So that's one thing. You can sign up to volunteer on our website.
Speaker 2:Of course, you can always donate funds. We have to have funds to pay our educators to teach classes and To do the programs that we do, and also we have Amazon lists too. So if you want to support our programs, you can go online. You can buy the products for our cleaning program. You can buy the products for our home fire safety classes. You can buy items for families for home makeovers. That's also a way to get involved.
Speaker 1:Well, hannah, I just want to say thank you for doing all that you do. I know you know we touch on this very briefly, but this was not your plan for your life. But but God had an amazing, an amazing plan for you and you are making a huge impact in the community. I Guarantee this is not an easy job. I'm sure that there's a lot of frustrating days, but but you're doing it and just thank you so much for your hard work. Thank you for coming on the podcast today and just telling us a little bit About the organization and and how people can help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I just want to end with just two things. You know, I think a thing that drives restoring dignity is that there's a lot of suffering in this world, a lot of unnecessary suffering, and so we're always asking the question how can we relieve that unnecessary suffering? And then the other thing, too, that really motivates us is what would we want someone else to do if we were in this situation? So if I became a refugee tomorrow and ended up having to go to another country, what kind of help would I want? What kind of support? What I want? And so, whatever that answer is, that is what we are compelled to do here, and we need to do it. We have to do it, and so that is a huge part of what drives restoring dignity to.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, liz. Thank you for being an awesome partner and representative of King and Kings, faithfully Continuing to serve with restoring dignity, and thank you for giving the time to come in and talk about it today.
Speaker 3:My pleasure.
Speaker 1:King and Kings family, let's keep living our faith lives beyond Sunday.