Center for Refugee Services

09/23/2026

The Big Give starts tonight! This year, our impact on helping our clients achieve stability and self-sufficiency is growing. Visits for job application assistance are up 24% compared to last year, we are adding English classes to our schedule and bringing back citizenship classes soon. If you would like to be a part of this impact, please donate to us through the Big Give!

As a grantee of the Najim Charitable Foundation, donations to the Center for Refugee Services will be matched for five minutes starting at 11:13 AM on Thursday, September 24, until funds run out. We recommend that donors have their donation form filled out and ready to go at 11:13 AM to maximize their chances of receiving the match: https://www.thebiggive.org/.../Center-For-Refugee-Services

09/16/2026

The Big Give is around the corner!

As a grantee of the Najim Charitable Foundation, donations to the Center for Refugee Services will be matched for five minutes starting at 11:13 AM on Thursday, September 24, until funds run out. We recommend that donors have their donation form filled out and ready to go at 11:13 AM to maximize their chances of receiving the match: https://www.thebiggive.org/organization/Center-For-Refugee-Services

09/10/2026

Our annual warm clothing drive event is next month! We will collect donations on October 11 (4-6pm), 12 (10am-4pm), and 13 (10am-4pm) at our office: 8600 Wurzbach, Suite 802.

We are collecting gently used clothes for cold weather (sweaters, coats, etc.), blankets, yarn, and fabric for sewing. If you would like to make a donation of new items, we would appreciate socks, children's underwear and blankets.

Thank you for thinking of our clients as you make room in your closets!

If you would like to volunteer for this project, please visit our SignUp Genius:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4FAEAF28ABF8CE9-winter #/

09/04/2026

Enjoy your long weekend everyone! We will be closed on Monday for Labor Day.

08/26/2026

On August 26, 2021, there were only a few days left in the evacuation of Kabul. For about two weeks that month, over 120,000 people were airlifted out of Afghanistan from Hamid Karzai International Airport. Some of these people were US citizens, but others were Afghans who worked with the US military. It would be weeks or months before the first Afghans from the evacuation were resettled in San Antonio.

At the Center for Refugee Services, we were assisted by many members of the San Antonio community as we prepared for their arrival. We received enormous amounts of in-kind donations, support from community partners and also the notes of welcome for Afghan families pictured here.

08/24/2026

It is amazing what our Center for Refugee Services community can do when we mobilize! This month, we are looking back five years to when we first starting receiving large numbers of Afghan refugees. As you can see from the video we posted last week, we did not know just how many new arrivals we would get. Initial estimates were that we would receive anywhere from 100-400 people. Today, we have over 6,000 active clients in our database. Back in 2021, CRS and our friends in the San Antonio community loaded pickup trucks to get furnishings and other household goods to newly arrived families. During those first several months after the evacuation, we served over 2,000 clients, many times more than the initial estimates.

08/21/2026

If you are a subscriber to our newsletter, you have already seen that we are reflecting this month on the five year anniversary of the evacuation of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. As you can see from this news clip, we had no idea just how many families we would end up serving here in San Antonio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FU9pWZmqAI

We look forward to sharing more photos and memories from this impactful time over the coming days.

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08/19/2026

We are grateful for the donation of clothing from SATS-Youth Wing They shared with us some photos of all the work that it took to organize and deliver the donations!

08/06/2026

Most of the students from our client families head back to school on Monday. Thank you again to our donors and volunteers who made our backpack event a success! Starting last week, families received new, filled backpacks for each of their school-aged children. These much-needed supplies represent a day's wages for our client families. Thank you again to our supporters!

08/04/2026

Did our back-to-school backpack event inspire you to get involved with the Center for Refugee Services? We are looking for a few more teachers for our Monday and Wednesday English (ESL) classes. We have both daytime and evening classes. If you would like more information please email [email protected] or call (210 640 7894.