While it's not the family the local committee expected, a new family from Syria will call North Bay home in the future.
Stu Kidd, the Chair of the North Bay Refugee Committee told BayToday that they learned about three weeks ago from the Mennonite Central Committee, which is acting as a go-between or sponsorship agency the committee is working through, that the original family of a mother and nine children was not coming to Canada, for reasons unknown.
"However, two weeks later we get a message saying 'how about this other family of six?'"
The committee was ready to welcome the family of 10, but Kidd says it has re-tooled and will now take a new approach this time based on advice from some of the immigrants themselves and from the Muslim community.
The plan now is to let the refuges arrive first, then make arrangements that fit the family when they get here.
"I think its a much more realistic approach to helping them rather than prejudging what their needs are. We can do a real good job accommodating them on short term notice when they do arrive," explained Kidd.
The committee doesn't have a house ready for the the family's arrival and will probably settle on an apartment rather than a house so that it doesn't impose chores like yard maintenance, snow removal, and lawn mowing on a family that may or may not be used to it.
The committee has no idea yet when this new family will arrive.
"All I have is the names of the people, and that there's four kids aged between 11 and 16, one of whom is a girl, so it's about the same sized family" [as the one now in North Bay].
"We were just told to be ready within 48 hours. That's what we did last time too."
The Jabr family was the first to arrive at the end of January.
See previous stories: Thank you North Bay and Canada says local Syrian refugee family
