The Idaho Chapter
Founder: Piper Green
A few years ago my family and I moved to a town just outside of Sun Valley Idaho, which is a pretty famous ski resort area. This was the first time I was living in an area that had snow so I took up snowboarding.
I was coming into High School in 10th Grade so it was a little awkward. The kids were nice and I made some friends but I still felt like “the new kid” and an outsider for most of the first year in school.
I joined our Amnesty International Club and was following the news about Ukraine and stories about Ukrainian teenagers who fled their country and were living in Poland and England. It was and is tragic, but very far away from my corner of Idaho.
But these stories made me more curious…
When I went to the public library in town I noticed there were groups of Spanish-speaking adults and a couple of teenagers. They were using the computers there, some sleeping at desks.
So I reached out to TATD and spoke with Chloe to find out how I could get information about these people and teen refugees in Idaho. Together we called the Idaho Office for Refugees to find out more information.
So last year and this year, Idaho resettled 1200 refugees each year. That’s not a lot, but Idaho is rather isolated in the middle of the country. A majority of the refugees came from Congo, fleeing the Civil War there. The second largest group came from Afghanistan. And then other refugees came in smaller numbers from African and Asian countries.
All of the refugees in Idaho are resettled in Boise, our capital, and Twin Falls. No refugees have been resettled in the Sun Valley area.
So who are these people I keep seeing?
A woman in the Refugee office told us that the Spanish-speaking people I have been seeing are Peruvian. Her story was that a few years ago one of the fancy ski resorts in Sun Valley hired some Peruvian workers who were so responsible and good workers that other ski resorts in the area started hiring Peruvians to work on their properties.
So they aren’t refugees, and most aren’t even immigrants. They are seasonal workers. But the problem is, they are paid very low wages during the ski season. They struggle to pay for food and housing. And when the ski season is over? The resorts let them go until the following winter.
So the people I were seeing were poor, struggling to pay for rent and food, and since I saw them in the spring, they were out of work too.
I spent the next few weeks calling churches and synagogues in the area to see if they had a program for refugees or immigrants or these workers. And if they knew any of these families that had teenagers.
No organization had any sort of program and they were not aware of these workers. But many of them told me that I should contact an organization called the Hunger Coalition which delivers food to poor people in the area.
I called the Hunger Coalition and spoke to the Field Organizer. She told me that Peruvians have been in our valley for decades helping to raise sheep. But over the last few years more Peruvian families came to Idaho because they were filling service jobs that were open because of the pandemic.
All these companies offered poor Peruvians jobs…but didn’t really think about how they were going to be housed. Or make enough money to eat. And that’s why there is a problem. The Organizer also said that more organizations are becoming aware of the problem and starting to pitch in. Including my school which started a Newcomers Program.
Many of these impoverished families live in a town called Bellevue where housing is the cheapest in the valley. And that’s where the Hunger Coalition does most of its work.
So she wanted me to keep tabs on what is going on in my school with Peruvian teen immigrants, and she is going to take me to a bunch of food deliveries where I will have an opportunity to meet the teenagers in these families.
My next post will tell you all about this.