A QUARTERLY UPDATE FROM THE NORTHEAST KINGDOM ASYLUM SEEKERS ASSISTANCE NETWORK

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International Food Festival!

Please join us at NEKASAN’s 4th Annual International Food Fest!
Saturday, October 10th, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
Catamount Arts, 115 Eastern Avenue, St. Johnsbury

This annual event celebrates our international connections through the language everyone speaks: delicious food! As was true of our first three years, this year’s event will feature sweet and savory delights from countries as diverse as Colombia, Liberia, Scotland, and Thailand, to name just a few different cuisines from around the world that will be available for you to taste. Every culture has dishes that form part of their cultural identity, and NEKASAN’s annual International Food Festival celebrates that diversity!

In addition to being fun and delicious, NEKASAN’s annual Food Fest is crucial to our ability to raise both awareness and funds to help us continue our work. NEKASAN uses the financial resources raised from individuals, businesses, foundations, and events like the Food Fest to help defray the costs of basic necessities for asylum seekers until they can become self-sufficient.

In the context of the current federal Administration’s unprecedented push to deport millions of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, NEKASAN has to raise funds to cover the increasingly expensive legal costs associated with asylum cases. In the past year alone, we have had to direct over $18,000 from our barebones budget toward legal expenses for our guests.

So, come to NEKASAN’s 4th Annual International Food Festival for the delectable delights drawn from global cuisines and leave knowing that you have helped us support new neighbors from around the world who want to call the St. Johnsbury area home.

Thank you!!!

CALLING ALL CHEFS, VOLUNTEERS & SUPPORTERS!!!

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Fall news notes

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Guest updates

Our Yemeni guest

MR has moved to the Burlington area where he shares an apartment with an East African woman he met though a mutual friend. We are grateful for local partners at the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network who brought him a bed, pillows and blankets. 

He has been doing Doordash and recently started a full-time job in Essex.

MR is deeply interested in spirituality. He has made three Jewish friends with whom he meets regularly. He has also made connections at the mosque in South Burlington.

Through a friend currently in Gambia, MR made contact with a venerated Sufi sheikh in the U.S. The sheikh will guide him in deepening his commitment to Islam according to the Sufi tradition. MR says he will finally become a real Sufi after having been a pretend Sufi for years. 

He is ready to make significant changes in his life. He is hopeful it will complete the healing he began in St. Johnsbury. MR says he feels healthier now than he has in the last 20 years.

— Jeff Kay

Car ownership

Three of our guest families have been driving vehicles owned by NEKASAN. Over the past three months, NEKASAN has transferred title and insurance to the drivers. For most of them, it is the first time they have owned a car.

One of our new drivers is so proud of his 2017 Subaru that he washes it every day after work.

NEKASAN volunteers will mentor each of the new car owners for the first year, helping them remember oil changes, annual registration and inspection, and providing advice about driving, traffic rules, and car maintenance.

Budgeting for self-sufficiency

All of our guest families start out with full financial support from NEKASAN, including rent and a monthly stipend for food. As they find jobs and have their own income, we work with each family to determine how and when they will take on their own basic expenses.

Our shared goal is for them to be fully self-sufficient within two or three years, as they gradually develop a credit and banking history.

Over the summer, we worked on budgets with all of our guests, helping those who had not yet opened a bank account and looking at income and expenses. 

Since beginning work, one guest has started paying half of his host fee and added his own health insurance. Others have cut back or eliminated the cash stipend they receive. Three have become car owners, with partial NEKASAN support for the first year (see above). 

Over time, transferring housing, car, and personal expenses to each guest allows these new Vermonters to become more confident members of the community.

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What is an asylum seeker?

An asylum seeker is a person forced to flee their country for fear of being killed, tortured, imprisoned, or severely persecuted by the government due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

There are two types of asylum cases: affirmative and defensive.

Defensive asylum seekers enter the country without a visa, therefore illegally in the eyes of the U.S. government. They are typically detained, awaiting deportation. Once detained, they may request a credible fear interview explaining their inability to return to their country without dire consequences. If their interview is successful, they are released and can then apply for asylum. This must be done within one year of entering the U.S.

Defensive asylum seekers are often required to check in with ICE periodically while awaiting a hearing date. They usually go through one or more Master Hearings in immigration court leading to a final or Individual Hearing when asylum will be granted or denied. If asylum is denied, they may appeal.

Affirmative asylum seekers enter the country legally with a visa, often a student or tourist visa. Once here, they apply for asylum and wait for an interview with an non-adversarial immigration agent who will listen to their case, ask questions, and grant or deny asylum. They are not required to check in with ICE, however they may wait 10 years or more for their interview. If asylum is denied, they may choose to have their case heard by an immigration judge.

While the right to apply for asylum remains law, it is increasingly difficult to enter the U.S. and apply for asylum. 

Recently the process has been disrupted by the aggressive tactics employed by ICE. Checking in with ICE has become a frightening experience.

In May of 2025, we took one of our guests to St. Albans for a routine check-in. Without explanation, ICE detained him and held him for four months in a federal correctional institution in New Hampshire.

We supported him with visits, letters, and commissary money. With the help of the New Hampshire ACLU, his attorney was able to bring a habeas corpus petition and he was released.

With the help of targeted donations and grant funding, NEKASAN was able to cover the unanticipated $25,000 cost of freeing this one asylum seeker from detention. His asylum case is still pending. We have five other guests waiting as well.

NEKASAN has both affirmative and defensive asylum seekers. Over the summer, two of the affirmative cases were abruptly changed to defensive cases before a judge. Dates were set for a Master Hearing, in person, in Chelmsford, MA.

Understandably, our people were alarmed. ICE has been known to detain people in or near the courthouse. Many seasoned judges in these courts were replaced by new ones appointed for their political views. Some are deportation judges without judicial credentials or experience.

Then, just as abruptly, our guests’ Master Hearings were canceled. They now await Individual Hearings, possibly in months, likely in years. Our one remaining affirmative case is still waiting for his interview.

This changing immigration scene changes NEKASAN’s role as well: Instead of moving asylum seekers through the system and welcoming new ones, we now focus on protecting and assisting our current guests, helping them build a life while addressing the pervasive anxiety that afflicts today’s asylum seekers and the people who support them.

—Nancy Toney, NEKASAN Volunteer

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Treasurer’s report

We were recently approached by a NEKASAN supporter who voiced concern about  ICE-related events in Vermont and beyond. She wondered if asylum seekers in the Northeast Kingdom were affected and if NEKASAN needed emergency financial support.

Our answer was: Yes. And: maybe yes, maybe no.

Yes. Our people are affected.

As Nancy Toney’s article in this issue explains, asylum seekers in the current climate live in a constant state of anxiety. They are affected by every ICE event as well as the ever changing economy. They need to find and keep jobs, housing, vehicles, healthcare, and support families here and in their home countries.

All of that is challenging in normal circumstances. The fear of detention and deportation heightens the stress. Activities that help some of us relieve stress feel unavailable to many of our guests: going to a concert or a movie or a party or for a walk in the park feels too risky. They don’t dare venture beyond home, work, school, and maybe the grocery store.

So, in response to our concerned supporter, no, we don’t need emergency support. Yes, we need support.

NEKASAN has budgeted to help in all of this. We’ve increased our budget for legal expenses and support for rent and living expenses. We help pay for counseling and much-needed medical and dental care.

Financially, we started 2026 with a bang, receiving several large anonymous gifts, grant reimbursements, and other gifts that put us way ahead of the game for the first half of the year.

As we approach the last quarter, we are beginning to fret. For the past three months, we have received little more than our much-appreciated recurring monthly donations totaling near $1,200 per month. Our monthly expenses for that period have been close to $9,000 per month.

We just received a generous $11,000 in grant funding from the Canaday Family Charitable Trust. The VT Community Foundation has promised a $5,000 donation at the end of the year, on top of other grants they have already sent us in 2026. And our recurring monthly donations will bring us another $4,800. (Thank you, sustaining donors!) That all totals $20,800.

We need $41,000 to meet our 2026 budget. We are $20,000 shy of that goal.

We may get another big check at the end of the year. But we may not. We don’t know. That’s how it is with anonymous donations. We are so grateful for the support, but we don’t know who to thank and we don’t know if they’ll choose to give again.

We greatly appreciate the new recurring donors who responded to our last newsletter. Having a larger pool of sustaining donors year-round goes a long way toward reducing our anxiety about meeting an ever growing budget to meet our guests’ needs in an unforeseeable landscape.

Will you become a NEKASAN sustainer by making a recurring donation at nekasan.org/donate? Or help us meet this year’s budget with a one-time donation now?

Whatever you give, however you give, NEKASAN deeply appreciates your participation and support.

—Anny Ewing, Treasurer

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Board matters

NEKASAN Board retreat – April 2026
NEKASAN’s Board of Directors met on a Saturday in April for a morning retreat facilitated by Amanda Cochrane (Executive Director, Umbrella) and an afternoon of working sessions in small groups. Preparatory work with Amanda focused the day on developing a strategic plan for the next three years.

Under Amanda’s skilled direction, we narrowed our goals to five main areas: Organizational leadership, Volunteer engagement, Guest independence, Financial Stability, and Community visibility. Our four working groups zeroed in on actions we could take right away, resulting in:

• A nominating committee to recruit new board members, support existing board members, and develop a succession plan as officers retire.
• A plan to better support and train volunteers, to increase engagement and support our working board and guest teams.
• An update to our guest agreement that allows each guest to have a personalized budget that will lead to financial self-sufficiency.
• A schedule and template for a quarterly newsletter to keep constituents and the community better informed.

Notably missing from the working groups’ output is a plan or a team to focus on financial stability. This skill set remains a priority in our volunteer recruitment and board search.

Interested in joining our Board? See the notice at the end of this message for more information.

VTNHASN retreat – June 2026
In late June, three NEKASAN Board members had the great pleasure of attending the annual Network retreat of VT-NH asylum support groups. Hosted at the beautiful home of one of the group directors, overlooking the Connecticut River on the Orford NH side, we met for a full day of activities and discussions led by the Network’s interim coordinator, Katie Franco (SquareRoots Consulting). Anny Ewing (Treasurer), Kathy Hayes (Vice President), and Nancy Toney (team leader and board member) joined representatives from seven other ASNs in Vermont and New Hampshire. The day offered opportunities for small groups to have deep dive conversations about topics of mutual interest, such as:

• Models for guest support – teams vs specialists, helping guests become self-sufficient, when to accept new guests, how to help with limited funds
• Operations – clarify roles, workflows, governance; diversify and stabilize income; internal and external communications
• Communications – shared expectations for how teams communicate via email, text, Signal, shared drives

In the afternoon, the whole group addressed how our collaboration will move forward with: 

• Fundraising – for the network, including both VT and NH groups; to pay our network coordinator; whether we need to appoint/hire a fiscal sponsor
• Network-wide training for board members and volunteers.

In the aftermath of the retreat, we are now applying for a new network grant and have already had two all-network trainings, one on document handling and one on defining and assigning roles within the organization.

We learned that NEKASAN is one of the smallest organizations, with 13 guests and a current board of 5 working members. CVRAN in Montpelier hosts almost 150 people. We are also one of a small number of groups with no paid staff; several have a paid director or program coordinator or both.

NEKASAN Annual Meeting – July 2026

NEKASAN hosted our annual meeting in late July, attended by current board members and interested volunteers and constituents. With reporting on budget, events, and fundraising, our main focus was on bidding farewell to three of our founding board members: Libby Hillhouse, Nancy Toney, and Judy Daloz, all of whom were instrumental in bringing NEKASAN from an idea in 2019 to the full-fledged non-profit organization it is today. Libby Hillhouse led NEKASAN as board president for 5 of her 6 years. We are fortunate that all three are willing to stay on as volunteers. Their insights and experience are invaluable. 

We also thanked three volunteers who chose to leave the board for other pursuits: Marion Mohri, Dinah Yessne, and Karyn Jilk. All three have made and continue to make a huge difference in the lives of our asylum seeker guests. Since the annual meeting, our former treasurer, Lawuo Dolo, has also stepped away from the board. Her professional financial and accounting expertise will be missed.

Those retirements left some big holes on NEKASAN’s board which we are still working to fill. As a stop-gap measure, the following slate of officers was proposed and elected at the meeting:

    Kathy Hayes – Co-President and Vice President

    Anny Ewing – Co-President and Treasurer

    Jeff Kay – Secretary

Ongoing and returning board members are:

    Donna Delany

    Caty Crabb

The search for new board members continues!

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Join our Board!

The Northeast Kingdom Asylum Seekers Assistance Network (NEKASAN) is seeking community members to serve on our Board of Directors, including a volunteer Board President.

Since 2020, NEKASAN has helped asylum seekers and refugees build safe, stable and fulfilling lives by helping them negotiate access to housing, transportation, education, legal representation, healthcare, and employment. 

We are looking for individuals who believe our communities grow stronger when we welcome and support people from diverse cultures.

We are seeking to build a diverse board of people with a wide range of backgrounds, skills, and lived experiences. Experience in nonprofit leadership, fundraising, finance, nonprofit law, communications, healthcare, or business, is valuable but not necessary. There are many other ways to make a difference.

Serving on the board is meaningful work. Board members help guide the mission of NEKASAN, providing strategic direction and ensuring financial stability and legal compliance. Interested Board members may also engage in the lives of the individuals and families we support by being on a guest team.

If you are looking for a meaningful way to directly support the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in the Northeast Kingdom, we hope to hear from you.

To learn more about serving on the Board, contact: nekasanvt@gmail.com.
Learn more about our work at: nekasan.org
Apply at: nekasan.org/volunteer-with-nekasan

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Save the Date:

International Food Fest: Saturday, October 10, 2026, 11am-1pm
Catamount Arts, 115 Eastern Avenue, St. Johnsbury

Thank you from everyone at NEKASAN!