Syrian family cooking for North Hills community

Former Syrian refugee Sumaya Antar, who has recently resettled in the North Hills with her three children and husband, is inviting everyone to dinner.

She is the featured host of THRIVE’s Supper Club, being held from 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 22 at North Hills Community Baptist Church, on Thompson Run Road at the Ross-McCandless line

Tickets for the dinner, featuring favorite foods of Sumaya’s home, are $30 for adults and $20 for children ages 5 to 17 and can be purchased at www.thrivepittsburgh.org. After food costs, the sales of the tickets will go toward supporting the Antar family.

Resettling often is a major struggle for new arrivals, said Pauline Spring, a volunteer at THRIVE, a nonprofit that helps former refugees. Many of them, who are fully documented and came through the U.S. Resettlement Program, arrive in the country with skills and experience, ready to work.

However, it’s a challenge.

“As we work with refugees that have been settled in Pittsburgh with refugee agencies, we find they struggle to find employment to support their families adequately,” Spring said.

Despite having careers, licenses and other work experiences in their home countries, many newly resettled people seeking jobs find they aren’t qualified to work in the United States. Spring knows of one man who was a pilot in Afghanistan, but because the regulations are different here, he has to return to flight school, which is very expensive.

Sumaya Antar’s husband is certified in welding in his country and was a forklift operator, but he can’t find work for similar reasons, Spring said.

‘To live in safety and security’

The Antar family left Syria in 2016 during the civil war there and lived in refugee camps in Jordan until they came to the United States in 2023.

They now live in Shaler with their children, ages 14, 10 and 5.

“The United States is one of the most attractive countries for people all over the world,” Sumaya said. “There are many reasons why people immigrate to America, such as job opportunities, democratic freedom, education, cultural diversity, health care, security and safety. We Syrians missed some of these, and as a family we immigrated to the United States to live in safety and security, and educate our children.”

THRIVE’s Supper Clubs events help raise money for refugees and awareness of their plight. The first such event was in 2019.

“To help them become more self-sufficient and be able to provide for their families, we try to identify people, men or women, who have cooking skills that could be used to help support their families,” Spring said.

The primary purpose of the fundraisers is to give the host cook the opportunity to support his or her family by using cooking skills, per the THRIVE website.

The secondary purpose is to give guests the chance to learn more about the former refugee’s culture, country and story. Families or the cook are asked to give a short cultural presentation at the dinner.

More than 80% of ticket sales go to the host cook, after food costs, Spring said.

‘Thank you, America’

Spring called Sumaya “an excellent cook. She always wants to serve us food while we are there.”

The Syrian Supper Club Menu includes an appetizer, salad and choice of entrees with sides. Entrees include Chicken Shawarma, Kebab Hindi beef meatballs, and Mujadara, a vegetarian option. Dessert and coffee, tea or iced beverage is also included.

Tickets to the supper club are available until 6 p.m. on Sept. 17.

“We hope that we will succeed in our future lives and that America will be proud of us,” Sumaya said. “Our ambition is to succeed and offer something to America, as America has offered us and embraced us. America is our second country. Thank you, America.”

There are more ways to help refugees through THRIVE, including donations and purchases from the nonprofit’s Wish List registry, which can be found on the organization’s website. Hygiene kits and new household goods can be dropped off from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at THRIVE’s storage area at North Hills Community Baptist Church, according to the website.

Funds can be donated toward a welcome bag given to each refugee child, infant through age 18, on the day the youngster arrives in Pittsburgh.

THRIVE delivers all donations personally to AJAPO (Acculturation for Justice, Access and Peace Outreach), its partner refugee resettlement agency. The nonprofit helped five families move into apartments or homes in the local area this spring, including from Syria, Turkey and Afghanistan.