Welcoming the Stranger (WTS) was started as a grass-roots project in the spring of 2015. Maine was seeing the arrival of many asylum-seekers, mostly from central African countries like Burundi, Rwanda, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

A group of Portland residents came together to see how they could help welcome the new neighbors. They were mostly Jewish people for whom the plight of today’s asylum-seekers particularly resonated, due to their own personal links to the Holocaust or because the stories of the asylum-seekers profoundly mirrored the Jewish history of oppression, flight and forced reinvention.

The concept of “welcoming the stranger” is a well-known aspect of the Jewish tradition. This small group decided to help people one-on-one with whatever small or large issues confronted them.

Focusing on daily tasks meant volunteers didn’t have to be experts at anything but could simply be a much-needed friend offering support.

WTS’s goal was to formalize friendships between local volunteers (individuals or families) and asylum-seeking individuals or families to help them settle in to life in our community.

The project formed under the fiscal sponsorship of Temple Beth El, though it was a secular project. The first mentor matches were made in May of 2016, and the number of mentoring friendships gradually grew. By the end of 2017 there were 120 mentoring partnerships – and growing. For several years, it ran entirely on volunteer power, then added a quarter-time coordinator as the first paid position in 2019.