Your Catholic Neighbor: Carolyn Manning

SCOTTSDALE — Her garage is stuffed with donations and the telephone never seems to stop ringing, but St. Maria Goretti parishioner Carolyn Manning seems unfazed by it all. Her heart’s desire is to welcome refugees who come to Phoenix.

It was shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that Manning’s brainchild, the Welcome to America Project, was born. Her husband’s brother, Terence Manning, was killed when one of the hijacked jets crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center.

Manning saw a story in the newspaper about a young refugee family from Afghanistan that had fled the brutality of the Taliban and had taken up residence in Phoenix. The mother was expecting her fifth child, and Manning was a mother of five young children as well.

She also saw news footage of people overseas burning American flags.

“I didn’t know what this family’s view of us was. It seemed like there were parts of world that hated America,” Manning said. “We wanted them to know Americans are good, generous people. I felt sorry for them that they had lost so much from the Taliban. We [ourselves] had lost so much from the terrorists.”

Manning’s desire to give meaning to Terence’s death and help refugee families heal from the trauma of having to flee their homeland — often with just the clothes on their backs — led to the founding of WTAP.

“The refugee resettlement agencies do give them the basics, but they can’t do everything,” Manning said. “It doesn’t include fleshing out their apartment and making it a home — it’s really just a bare bones minimum. They do help them find jobs, but that doesn’t connect them to the community they’re in.”

Manning’s crew of volunteers collects donations such as furniture, household items and clothing and makes deliveries to refugee families on Saturdays. So far, 550 families have been helped and Manning says she has been there for almost all of them.

She seems energized by the ministry, which is a good thing, because while she spends 40 hours a week as WTAP’s unpaid executive director, she also works a part-time job in the evening as a suicide hotline counselor, and yet somehow manages five children.

She said she enjoys meeting with the families — who have fled the horrors of war, genocide and often years of languishing in the squalor of refugee camps — and introducing them to Phoenix.

“What we’re doing is we are not offering them charity, but we balance the scales. We are bringing them what we would want for ourselves, and that is not only the furniture and household items but trying to restore their dignity,” Manning said.

The refugees, Manning said, inspire her because they choose to have a positive outlook on life even after they’ve been traumatized by the situations they escaped. She has heard their harrowing tales and is moved by their faith in and gratitude to God. “Who could survive 17 years in a refugee camp, or watch their mother be raped and yet still say, ‘God is good. God saved me’?”

What do you like most about being Catholic?

What I like is that our faith emphasizes redemption. Of all the faiths that I learned about — and I learned about a lot of them — they all have their special ways. But it’s Jesus dying on the cross and taking all of our sins with Him and that we have, up until the moment we die, the opportunity to be redeemed, because Jesus did that for all of us. That is the best thing about our faith.

How does your work help you to grow in faith?

I find that I feel the closest to my faith and I feel like I’m listening better to God when I’m doing this work. I’m less caught up in the trappings of materialism and vanity when I’m doing it. What makes me happy becomes more apparent when I’m doing this work and it’s not those things.

Is there a particular refugee who stands out in your mind?

I went to the International Rescue Committee, almost one year to the day after started this project. Some of the Bosnian families I had helped came and the refugees and staff signed a picture. A man named Blaus wrote, “You gave me the hope that humanity is still alive.” That’s how they feel. We help people have faith in humanity.

If you could meet one person…

The people I meet each week are just as extraordinary [as well-known figures], but you just haven’t heard their story. The many different faiths I’ve seen in the refugees inspire me. I feel like I meet somebody famous every time I go on a delivery.

Photos: Joyce Coronel/CATHOLIC SUN

Carolyn Manning, founder of the Welcome to America Project, holds a picture of some of the refugees helped.

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