Letter from the Board

2021 has been a year for changes, challenges and opportunities. After working remotely most of the last year, NewBridges staff are now mainly working in the office while using proper precautions as they work with clients that they need to see in person.

A major change for NewBridges came as we said good-by to Alicia Horst, Executive Director for almost 12 years. She served NewBridges and the community with honor, dedication and distinction. The staff are facing the challenges of working without an Executive Director while the Board is going through the process of recruiting and interviewing applicants. You would be proud of the way they have accepted the task of managing the day-to-day activities as they continue to respond to the needs of the immigrant community. 

NewBridges received a grant from the Virginia Department of Social Services allowing us to expand our services to include more support for immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. We have hired additional staff to support this grant-funded programmatic effort and look forward to providing direct services in the beginning of the new year.

NewBridges couldn’t do the work we are doing without your support both financially and emotionally. So many of you have been incredibly generous and we are deeply grateful to you. But we’re not done, the work must go on and we are dependent on you to make that possible. So please respond again as you have in the past. We are launching a Challenge Campaign where your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $20,000. So please, as you plan your year-end giving, consider how you can again support the important work that is being done by NewBridges.

Warmly,

Marv Nisly, Board Chair

Meeting the Challenge

Did you know that more than 85% of our funding each year comes from private donors like you? NewBridges receives no Federal funding for our Immigration Legal, Health Navigation or Resource Referral Programs. That means we can only continue this important work with YOUR support. Thanks to the wonderful generosity of Stan and Susan Godshall and an Anonymous donor, donations made to NewBridges will be matched dollar-for-dollar, up to $20,000, as part of our 2021 Challenge Campaign.

This means that a special gift from you right now will have twice the impact in allowing us to continue our important work serving immigrants right here in Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley.

• $100 can cover the cost of renewing an Employment Authorization Document, which allows immigrants the right to work in the U.S. – and employers the right to hire them
• $40 can cover the cost of an immigration consultation for individuals who are interested in learning more about what immigration processes they can access
• $25 can cover the cost of a one-page document translation

December 16 is the deadline to have your gift count towards this match. Will you please act today?

Citizenship Education Project

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people – why don’t they just become citizens?” That’s a question we’ve heard more than once and are sure to encounter again. For many immigrants to the U.S., the path to citizenship is a long one that can take anywhere from 4 to 20 years – or more! One of our more recently naturalized (the technical term for “becoming a citizen”) clients, Nubia, is generously allowing us to share part of her story in illustrating the “why” and “what” of her path to citizenship:

“I arrived in this beautiful country 17 years ago and when I arrived I heard stories of people who had waited many years to obtain their documents and of others for whom it was impossible to fix their immigration situation. I had been here for a bit of time when one day I said to myself, ‘I think I will die undocumented in this country!’ but God opened doors that were closed and the right people were put in my way. I got my Green Card after 14 years of being here, a very long process in which you have to have a lot of patience, faith, and hope. We began our citizenship process in 2019; my beautiful mother told me to go to NewBridges Immigrant Resource Center.”

Nubia first met with the staff at NewBridges in 2019 for a consultation and to get our assistance to file the N-400 which is the Application for Naturalization. Once her application was approved, she had to travel to Fairfax, Virginia in November 2020 for an interview with a U.S. Customs and Immigration Services officer who asked questions about her application and background, and to complete the naturalization test which included both an English language test and civics exam. She studied hard and passed both parts of the test the first time!

About 2 months later, Nubia was notified of her upcoming Oath of Allegiance ceremony in Fairfax – the last step you take before becoming a Naturalized Citizen. Here you can see her with her Certificate of Naturalization following that ceremony.

“I thank God for each of the people who work in this place! Today I am a citizen of the United States born in my beloved El Salvador. God bless this beautiful nation for its nobility and goodness, and beautiful people full of mercy. I am Nubia, and this is a bit of my story.”