University of Wisconsin – La Crosse students and staff organized a campus-wide toy drive this week to provide over 400 toys to Afghan refugee children.
Faculty, staff and students at the university spent two weeks collecting around 400 toys to donate to Fort McCoy, where over 12,600 Afghan refugees have been living, almost half of whom are children, according to La Crosse Tribune.
“Providing our new Afghan neighbors a warm Wisconsin welcome is important as these families begin their lives in a new country. The faculty, staff and students at UWL recognized this and were quick to ask how they could help those who have been displaced from their homes – their country – with little more than the clothes on their backs. This toy drive is just one small way for us to say welcome," said Lisa Klein, UWL Community Engagement Coordinator, according to the La Crosse Tribune.
Fort McCoy received the largest group of Afghan refugees out of the eight military bases that were open to housing them, with the majority of refugees waiting on base for their health screenings, work authorizations and immigration paperwork to be processed, according to Time.
While many La Crosse community members have been welcoming toward refugees, some have been cautious, remembering a time where 14,000 Cuban immigrants lived on base in the 1980s. Reports of two criminal incidents from Afghan immigrants on the base where one man was charged with engaging in sexual acts with a minor, and another man was charged with assaulting his wife, have also put some community members on edge, according to Time.
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