Leaving most of our belongings in Poland we arrived in America with the shirts on our back and five hundred dollars in my father's pocket.

That was just enough to secure an apartment and furnish it with mismatched pieces handed down to us through friends. We purchased a used car. My mother enrolled me at the local Catholic school where the nuns waived the tuition for us. My kindergarten uniform was donated by someone in the first grade and my back-to-school sneakers were purchased at a garage sale. Two months into the school year I opened up the hall closet in our one bedroom apartment and found a box of toys donated by an organization that were to be our Christmas presents two months later.

Our family survived that first year through the good grace of others.

Five years later my father saved enough money to pay back Catholic Relief Services for our plane tickets to Chicago. My mother marched into the office proudly holding an envelope containing three times more then we had arrived with and offered it to CRS. "I pay you back." she told them. I don't think I have ever shared that story but the image reminds me of the strong worth ethic that my parents believe in. We had many people and organizations that helped our family and my parents wanted to make sure they could pay it forward so that others would have the same opportunities.

This summer when my husband and I were looking for an organization to donate our washer/dryer to, we focused our search on Cleveland families in need. Through a good friend we learned about the Kids of Sudan. In 1987, 17,000 boys were forced from their homes as Islamic fundamentalist death squads invaded Southern Sudan in an ethnic cleaning frenzy. They spent years in refugee camps and became known as the "Lost Boys". Twenty-nine of the original "Lost Boys" came to Cleveland. Kids of Sudan is a local organization that ensures the children of the "Lost Boys" never have the childhood they experienced. I was immediately drawn to the organization as an immigrant myself.

On a sunny Sunday morning we loaded our washer/dryer and drove it to the home of one of the "Lost Boys".

We were greeted with smiles. Honest smiles that reminded me of my father beaming with pride while saying "Great Americka is all around us" when we begged to go to Great America amusement park.

Indeed, Tata. It is a great Americka full of organizations that ensure possibilities. Without them I would not be here today.