Lutheran Services in Iowa is celebrating the opening of an office in Sioux City. The agency provides services in immigrant and refugee resettlement, early childhood needs, and foster care and adoption.
Nick Wuertz is director of refugee services at LSI and says they provide help to people who come to northwest Iowa from all over the world.
“We are proud to have welcomed 150 people here to the Siouxland community over the last year from places like Syria and Afghanistan and Somalia, Ethiopia, Honduras, El Salvador,” Wuertz says, “and we’re planning to continue to welcome others that come here over the year to come.”
Mallory Berkenpas oversees a variety of efforts as the agency’s service coordinator for early childhood programs.
“In-home visitation with our Healthy Families America program,” Berkenpas says, “and we recently expanded into new counties. It’s really exciting for us. We also do group-based parent education and adolescent pregnancy prevention work.”
Sarah Green, the vice president of philanthropy and church relations with LSI, says they need more people to help with their services and to donate supplies for the refugees.
“We’re looking for individuals who can volunteer with our apartment setups, organizing in-kind donations, transporting our resettlement clients to medical appointments or to work,” Green says. “We’re also looking for support for foster care and adoption in early childhood services. We always have a need for in-kind items like car seats, diapers, baby wash formula, things like that.”
Learn more about the organization at lsiowa.org.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)