Restaurant fundraiser in B.C. brings hope to Syrian family

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For weeks, Merell Nassar worried about the food – whether there would be enough, how it would be served and which dishes should take pride of place at a meal that could be a life-saver.

So she cooked her heart out, chopping and grilling and spicing until 2 a.m. Saturday, working with her husband, Fouad Awad, to ensure everything would be just right.

Those efforts paid off Saturday evening, as the scent of marinated pork and spicy falafel drifted through the doors of the Campbell River community centre and nearly 400 people showed up for a $40-a-ticket fundraiser that featured a sit-down meal and entertainment that included Mr. Awad on the electric piano, playing sinuous music for belly dancers. The couple own BaBa Gannouj restaurant, a Campbell River restaurant that serves Syrian and Lebanese food, and want to bring a dozen family members to Canada from their homeland of Syria.

"There were 382 tickets sold," Ms. Nassar said on Saturday night, her eyes welling.

"I never thought it would happen, but it did."

The weekend fundraiser was a watershed event for Ms. Nassar, who came to Campbell River from Syria in 2009 and has since watched the country be torn apart by war. The event also speaks to Canadians' receptiveness to sponsoring refugee families, which appears to have gained momentum since a photo of drowned, three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach thrust the country's refugee crisis into the Canadian election campaign and into the public eye in a way it hadn't been before.

In many Canadian cities, that receptiveness has a launching pad in the form of community groups that have been down the sponsorship road before.

And in Campbell River, that launching pad is St. Peter's Anglican Church, or more properly, the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, which is one of 14 sponsorship agreement holders in the province. Such federally approved groups exist across the country: Ontario has 45, for example; there are six in Saskatchewan. Most are church-affiliated.

Last year, as conditions in Syria worsened, Ms. Nassar started looking for ways to bring her family to Campbell River and was advised to connect with a sponsorship agreement holder.

Eventually, that brought her to Mary Cook, a St. Peter's parishioner who didn't blink when Ms. Nassar said she wanted to sponsor 12 people.

"She just said, 'Well, we did six last time, we'll double it,'" Ms. Nassar recalls of their first meeting in August. "She said 'We'll have a counsellor in a couple of days, I'm positive, we'll do it – go sleep, we're going to do it.' I felt we were in the right hands. She was the voice of an angel – and I knew that would be it."

Ms. Nassar wants to bring 12 people in all: her mother; her two sisters, their husbands and their children; and three cousins. They currently live in Latakia, a port city where Russian forces have arrived in recent days. The group includes an accountant, a marine engineer and a carpenter as well as preteen children. Because of health concerns, they haven't joined the thousands of people fleeing the country. Ms. Nassar's mother, 70, is an amputee and one of her nephews received a kidney transplant five years ago – following a fundraising campaign in Campbell River that helped pay for his operation.

Now, with roads closed and hospitals under fire, the family can no longer reliably get his medication. As Christians, they are also encountering harassment and persecution. Bombs have fallen near her niece's school and Ms. Nassar treats every phone call with her mother as if it might be her last.

Under government rules, St. Peter's is required to raise $150,000 for the group. That would provide enough to cover essentials – rent, food, clothing and utilities – for a year. If fundraising falls short, the Anglican Church would step in to fill the gap.

St. Peter's has sponsored three other groups, from Bosnia, Pakistan and Kosovo.

The weekend banquet was the work of many hands. Several churches of varying denominations pitched in with donations and with volunteers. City council waived the rental fee for the community centre. The local newspaper, The Campbell River Mirror, designed a poster and ran free advertisements. Local artists and businesses contributed goods for a silent auction, ranging from handcrafted jewellery to lavish gift baskets from St. Jean's, a family-owned fish-processing company based in nearby Nanaimo.

The Kinsmen Club ran the cash bar and, in the interests of preventing any attendees from drinking and driving, also offered free rides home.

Early in the evening, there was a run on red wine, resulting in a run for additional stock and some good-humoured complaining at the bar.

"You never know what people are going to drink," a bartender said. "I thought beer would be the thing for Syrian food, but turns out people are drinking red wine – who knew?"

Through it all, Ms. Cook bustled – handing out crayons for kids to draw on paper tablecloths, greeting guests and popping in and out of the kitchen, where Ms. Nassar and Mr. Awad directed a squad of volunteer servers that included high-school students.

Once the money is raised, the sponsorship group will begin the process of getting the family first to Lebanon and then to Canada, which could take months.

Asked if residents of Campbell River – the self-described salmon capital of the world, with a population of about 36,000 – might be tapped out by repeated appeals for money to help refugees from distant parts of the world, Ms. Cook dismissed that concern with a wave of her hand. The city has a long tradition of community spirit and of companies stepping up with $5,000 and $10,000 donations even when times are tough. A recent fundraising drive for hospice programs raised $500,000 in three months, she said proudly, and she was rarely turned down in recent weeks as she canvassed high and low for silent auction items.

"You don't worry about it in Campbell River."