Home - Tennessee Resettlement Aid

Our Mission is to Welcome. Join us!

Tennessee Resettlement Aid seeks to fill the gaps in the current resettlement system with critical aid and integration services to refugees in middle Tennessee. We provide culturally appropriate food, clothes, and home-goods to new arrivals, as well as facilitate access to community resources through partner organizations.

Kid’s Winter Coat Drive

New families who arrive with limited clothing and almost no personal items struggle to adapt to the Tennessee temperatures. To help offset household costs, collected donations to get coats to 150 kids and teens before winter. Thank you to everyone who gave generously.

We gave away more than 150 coats to our refugee families!

Our Impact

REFUGEES HAVE RECEIVED
FOOD AID

FAMILIES GIVEN HOME
GOODS

WASHERS AND DRYERS
HOOKED UP

BICYCLES PROVIDED

CHILDREN WHO RECEIVED
COATS, SHOES &
SCHOOL SUPPLIES

MOMS RECEIVING DIAPERS
& BABY ITEMS

How You Can Help

Monetary Donations + Physical Donations + Volunteering

TRA was formed in 2021 to respond to the critical needs of Afghan refugees in Nashville. The unprecedented resettlement of more than 80,000 Afghans in the U.S. severely strained the resettlement system and shed light on serious gaps in the support services available to refugees. To date, more than 800 Afghan allies and their families live in Nashville and thanks your help, TRA has served them all. Our ultimate goal is to equip new Americans with the skills and confidence they need to be independent and contributive members of our community.

Our mission has its challenges but TRA walks alongside our refugee neighbors to provide physical and social support during integration. With the help of selfless volunteers and committed donors, TRA is able to serve more than 1,000 people a month with the basics and beyond, while cultivating community and acceptance.

As we continue to serve refugees and open our arms to new groups, we thank the incredible people who have come together to make our work possible. We will continue to work together to serve new arrivals with resources to be successful. TRA pledges to stand with all people and face these unique challenges together. With your help, show them that everyone is welcome in Nashville.

Crisis Points:

01.

________

INSUFFICIENT HOUSEHOLD SUPPLIES

Families receive a one-time provision of basic home-goods. TRA supplements this supply with cookware, dishware, regular cleaning supplies, hygiene items, and furniture to households free of charge.

02.

________

Food Insecurity

Families struggle to access food. Many families have neither the monetary means, transportation, language skills or knowledge of local resources to secure food in the first few months. TRA, along with The Branch of Nashville delivers food boxes to dozens of households each week.

03.

________

Self-Sufficiency

TRA’s aid and integration services are designed to encourage self-determination. Our programs are designed to track capacity and self-sufficiency to ensure independence.

Newly arriving refugees are in need of much more support. Our partners, donors, and volunteers ensure that we can serve a variety of needs quickly and effectively.

More than Aid...

Women and Baby Supplies — Providing a monthly supply of women's hygiene products, diapering supplies, formula, and bottles.
Professional Development — We believe that dignified and gainful employment has positive reverberations in almost all aspects of resettlement, from mental health to education. TRA works closely with local employers to match refugee job-seekers to positions that encourage capacity-development and English language learning in order to change the trajectories of generations to come.

TRA’s Afghan Volunteer Team

Bicycles — Distributing donated bicycles to families along with helmet, bike locks, and baskets.
Community and Contribution — Every program is supported by our dedicated team of Afghan volunteers. Recent arrivals themselves, they choose to give back to the community that first gave to them. This team logs hundreds of hours a month translating, transporting, advising and delivering for fellow Afghans and others.

About Us

Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you, too.
– Frederick Buechner

Our Story

The inspiration for TRA began at the Nashville airport in the fall of 2021, an appropriate place for a journey to begin. Katie Finn was working for a local resettlement agency, waiting to welcome one of the first Afghan arrivals. He emerged from the gate alone, clutching a plastic bag of documents and nothing else. He had no luggage with him and no bags on the carousel. He had no coat to keep him warm in the cool afternoon and only sandals on his feet. Katie couldn’t forget about him or shake her worry that he and other arriving Afghans wouldn’t have what they needed to stay warm. Soon after, she put the word out to her neighbors and friends—that Afghan allies are arriving totally unprepared for a Tennessee winter. The response was immediate and overwhelming; Katie’s living-room overflowed with donations and she was able to give new sets of warm clothes and jackets not only to that young man, but also to many other Afghan refugees as well.

That call for support made its way to fellow American Julie Pine and Saleem Tahiri, a member of the local Afghan community. All three volunteered their time and resources to prevent more families from slipping through the cracks. They quickly realized that there was a need for an organized response to this challenge and Tennessee Resettlement Aid (TRA), a nonprofit, was born. From these first days of individuals taking action to help their new friends and neighbors stay warm, TRA has grown to have a full leadership team, an extensive network of volunteers and a robust and diverse offering of aid, advocacy and data analysis programs.

Board of Directors

Randy Lowry

Chairman

Randy Lowry is an academic administrator who most recently served as President of Lipscomb University from 2005 to 2021. He has taught law at multiple institutions and is well known for his expertise in mediation.

Rick Nickels

Rick Nickels is a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP. He practices at the intersection of business, tax and estate planning as well as advises private companies and high net worth families on an array of tax, governance and planning matters.

Dan Hogan

Dan Hogan has been a longtime healthcare entrepreneur and Founder of both Doctor’s Associates Home Health and later the home health and hospice analytics firm Medalogix. Since his departure from healthcare he has co-founded and currently operates a spirits industry investment firm called Barrel Stock Trading Company.

Mary Falls

Mary Falls is a lawyer, mediator, and former advisor to Nashville’s Mayor John Cooper. She has spent decades serving and advocating for Tennessee's poor and vulnerable residents, with a particular focus on equality of access to healthcare.

Matthew Scanlan

Matthew Scanlan is the Senior Director of Government and Community Affairs at Vanderbilt Medical Center where he serves as the primary institutional contact with the executive and legislative branch in the State of Tennessee. Prior to joining VUMC, Matt was a partner in the law firm of Gullett, Sanford, Robinson, and Martin where his practice focused on advising businesses on regulatory and government relations issues.

W. J. Sutherland

W. J. (Josh) Sutherland is a manufacturing executive with 35+ years' experience providing automotive, industrial & railroad products. His family has lived in middle Tennessee since 1990 and have long supported various community and charitable organizations.

Barbara Sutton

As a partner at Dempsey Vantrease & Follis PLLC, Barbara Sutton, works with individuals and businesses on contract negotiations, sales and mergers, tax preparation and long-term planning. She has expertise in small businesses and start ups.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about TRA or how you can help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Send all inquiries to:

info@tennesseeresettlementaid.org

Mailing Address:

2355 Alteras Drive
Nashville, TN 37211