Welcome Neighbor STL’s Supper Club is transforming the lives of refugees
When Ayman Almalla and Ghaida Al Masrabi immigrated to St. Louis in 2016, they were thrust into an unfamiliar world without any of the comforts of home.
“The summer we came here, we didn’t know anyone; no friends, no language … we left our families,” Almalla says. “That makes it so hard.”
Their situation is similar to that of many refugees, and it’s one that local nonprofit Welcome Neighbor STL wants to help reconcile through its Supper Club program.
Hailing from Afghanistan and Syria to Morocco and India, the Supper Club’s refugee chefs cook the food of their home countries at regular dinners, events, festivals, cooking classes and drive-thru meal pickup events. The program empowers refugees by providing them with financially stable jobs and the means to share their culture with their new communities. It’s also a way for refugees to link back to the culture they left behind.
“I love food – I love cooking,” one of the refugee chefs, Mawda Altayan, says. “I learned cooking from my mom and my grandmother. I’ve always loved to cook and share food with my friends, and I love this job because it’s like part of my personality.”