Inside the Core: Holding a Bake Sale in Support of a Family of Refugee Orphans

Inside the Core this week we held a bake sale in support of a family of refugee orphans, with  whom Core Fellow Roger Alfani, Ph.D., met and developed a relationship, on his research trip to East Africa this past summer, funded by an NEH grant. A former Inside the Core described his important project. More recently, Alfani led a faculty development session for Core faculty about his research, and some of us who attended were so moved hearing about the refugees he visited and this family, in particular, that we decided to hold a bake sale to send them some support. This past Monday, at a table in the University Center, we earned approximately $300 to send to this family.

It was truly a collaborative project. Elizabeth Redwine, Ph.D., English lecturer and Coordinator of Core I: Journey of Transformation, led the effort, with help from the Core office. Before I had even mentioned we were going to hold a bake sale in my Core III: Engaging the World class (Fantasy and Faith: Tolkien, Lewis, and their Precursors), two of my students, Halima Koroma and Daniel Yan, happened to bring cupcakes to me after class. Once they learned about the project, these two students, truly master bakers, got totally on board with this effort, making a large number of beautifully crafted and creatively boxed cookies. These cookies were our biggest hit! Kelly Shea, Ph.D., and Sharon McGrady, Ph.D., both English faculty who also teach in the Core, contributed to the sale.

As Alfani, Redwine, and I staffed the table, we were struck by the many people offering to buy cookies, many donating much more than the asking price, once they learned what it was for. Truly, it captured the essence of the values we focus on in all the Core classes, particularly Core III, Engaging the World. In this season of Christmas and Hanukah, light is an important motif of each celebration, and this small event felt like a small light in a darkening world.

As it turns out, Alfani’s article, co-authored with Nicole Eggers, Ph.D., of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, about their experiences in East Africa among refugees in four countries, was published the same day as our bake sale. The article gives more details about the experiences of these refugees: 'You reach a point where you have nothing. You will just die' – in East African refugee camps, food scarcity is a mortal concern. Reflecting on the plight of refugees, Joseph became refugees themselves, not long after the birth of Jesus. Warned by an angel of the impending violence against the baby boys of Bethlehem being planned by the jealous King Herod, the Holy Family fled into Egypt for safety; (the Greek word used here for "to flee" being "pheuge" and pronounced "fugay" is also the root of the word "refugee" – see the article by Fr. James Martin in America, the Jesuit Journal for more on this topic. Like so many refugees, Joseph and Mary likely took few possessions with them and carried a young and vulnerable Child. What kind of welcome they received in Egypt is left undescribed in Scripture.

Inside the Core, we think of the Holy Family, as we are grateful to Alfani for making the plight of contemporary refugees more real to our Seton Hall Core family and grateful to our student and faculty helpers who were able to jump in and offer at least some small assistance to a particular family of refugees in the spirit of this holy time of year.

Categories: Faith and Service