ATHENS, Ohio – Since 2022, the volunteer-run Athens County Sponsor Circle has helped families from trouble spots such as Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nicaragua to resettle in the United States.
The group formed after the U.S. withdrew troops from Afghanistan in 2021, co-founder George Wood explained.
Previously, only traditional resettlement agencies were approved to help refugees transition to life in the U.S., including by helping with housing and immigration paperwork. With the withdrawal, however, the number of people applying for resettlement skyrocketed. In response to the influx of refugees to the U.S., the Biden administration created a sponsorship program for groups of five or more to bring displaced Afghans to the U.S. The program later expanded to include Ukrainian refugees.
“We just knew we couldn’t sit back and do nothing,” Wood said.
Over the following four years, the Athens group has helped families fleeing war, political repression, and instability build new lives.
“We call them newcomers, not refugees,” Wood said. “These are just the newest folks.”
Meet the newcomers
The first family the Sponsor Circle supported came to Southeast Ohio from Afghanistan: a man who had fought alongside U.S. troops, along with his two sons, their mother, and a nephew.
Ukrainian families fleeing war arrived after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Wood said one family — who still lives in Athens — became terrified for their five sons after hearing reports of children being abducted during the conflict. The oldest son eventually met a woman online who was still living in Ukraine, and Sponsor Circle volunteers helped bring her to the U.S., too. The couple married and had a baby earlier this year.
Then came families from Nicaragua. The mother of one of those families (also including a father and children) described their experiences to the Independent via emails that were translated into English by a Sponsor Circle member. The woman preferred to remain nameless.
“We decided to leave the country due to insecurity and the lack of freedom,” she wrote.
She said Sponsor Circle volunteers were“like family.” The organization helped with housing, administrative paperwork, and emotional support while the family adjusted to life in a new country.
The hardest parts of the move for them were deeply personal: a mother battling breast cancer back home, the inability to physically support family during illness, and the pain of never getting to say goodbye to a dying brother.
“It is emotionally difficult to leave behind your family and home, and to try to adapt to a new language and culture,” the family wrote.
A second Nicaraguan family — Karen, Kevin and their son Thiago — found the Sponsor Circle through an online sponsorship platform after seeing a video on TikTok about a different platform, where they could request a specific sponsor. Karen’s husband, Kevin, chose Wood “almost like a gut feeling,” Karen wrote.
Migration, Karen explained in an email, often means taking huge risks.
“Being a newcomer means starting from zero,” Karen said. “It means leaving everything you know behind, facing fears, adapting to a new culture, and working very hard every single day.”
For Karen and Kevin, one of the clearest signs that life was stabilizing came through their son. At first, Thiago cried constantly at school. He did not want to go. His grades struggled. He felt he was isolated by the language barrier.
“As parents, that broke our hearts,” Karen said.
Now, Thiago is finishing third grade with all A’s. His English has improved dramatically.
“Seeing his growth has been one of our greatest joys,” she said.
Meet the volunteers
The original Sponsor Circle volunteer group was small: Wood, who is superintendent at Federal Hocking Local School District; his wife, Marcia Burchby; Ryan Tevis, a former student of Wood’s; Tee Ford-Ahmed; Corine White; Jeff Marks; Joette Weber, and others who slowly folded themselves into the work as needs grew.
The group spans generations. Some were drawn to the work as passionate advocates; others simply saw families in crisis and decided they could not look away.
Volunteers first help furnish homes and stock refrigerators for families arriving with little more than the clothes they are wearing. Much of the organization’s work involves helping families navigate work permits, schools, transportation, healthcare systems, and immigration paperwork.
Volunteers also coordinate rides, translate paperwork, help families find work, and answer late-night phone calls. As direct sponsorship pathways have narrowed, volunteers continue speaking with churches, community groups, and local residents about immigration realities and the challenges newcomer families face.
“We’re not heroes,” Wood said.
As policy shifts, so do priorities
The U.S. program that allowed organizations like ACSC to bring families into the country is effectively no longer functioning. In 2025, the Trump administration halted federal funding for refugee resettlement agencies and suspended its refugee admissions program, cancelling travel plans for thousands of refugees who were cleared to enter the U.S. Among them were over 1,000 Afghans who, in over a two-decade span, had fought alongside, provided translation services for, or otherwise supported America in the war.
Because of those policy changes, the Sponsor Circle has focused on trying to protect the people they’ve helped move here.
The first family the circle worked with, originally from Afghanistan, moved from Athens to Houston to be closer to a long-term Afghan community. The father found work as an over-the-road truck driver, but when policy and political climate shifted in the U.S., he lost his commercial driver’s license, employment and progress in the legal citizenship process despite years of steady work.
“He feels pretty abandoned by this country,” Wood said.
Currently, the organization is raising money for legal support for its families. Attorneys are on retainer for several as fears grow over increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement.
“We are fearful of interactions with ICE because they seem to pick up people regardless of their status,” Wood said.
He said locals have often responded to the Sponsor Circle’s efforts with generosity, including employers who present job opportunities, school staff who work closely with kids, and community members who donate money and supplies.
This reflects the commitment to supporting families that Karen said helped give her family “peace of mind, hope, and a real opportunity.” Her family hopes to one day help others the way they’ve been helped, and “to be part of that chain of kindness.”
Wood believes the next step for Athens is smaller, more personal, and harder to organize.
“What [newcomers] do want, though, if you meet them, is maybe to invite them to the park or Thanksgiving or to Christmas,” Wood said. “It’s those simple acts that matter the most.”
“I know they’ll be fully assimilated when they start getting more invites to other kids’ birthday parties,” he said.
That kind of personal connection matters, Karen said, noting that while her family now lives in Las Vegas, they are still closely tied to the people who first helped them arrive.
“Many people risk everything along the way, crossing borders and facing danger, and sadly many do not make it,” Karen wrote. “We are very aware of that, and that is why we value even more what we experienced. For us, the process was completely different thanks to [ACSC]: it was safe, dignified, and full of support.”
ACSC’s work “truly changes lives,” she said.
