MANSFIELD, Ohio – Heather Tsavaris could feel her heart breaking as she watched footage of thousands of refugees from Syria and the Middle East fleeing their home countries.
In particular, she was most affected by watching parents who had no choice but to carry their babies and young children in their arms into Europe. More than 730,000 refugees have left their homes in Syria and the Middle East to escape war and terrorism, and 25 percent of those refugees are children.
“I can’t watch and not see myself in these people,” said Tsavaris, a descendant of Greek immigrants. “To me, these ladies look like myself. It’s not just an immigrant’s story. It’s everybody’s story who wants a better future for their kid.”
Desperate for a way to help, Tsavaris discovered Carry The Future – a non-profit organization started in October by a woman in California. The goal of the organization is to help refugee families “wear” their infants and toddlers in carriers to keep them as safe as possible during long, treacherous journeys.
“They’re walking and they have no idea where they’re going, they’re on a train and they don’t know if they’re going to get past a border,” Tsavaris said. “If you get to keep your baby close, I think it would give you some peace of mind in this crazy situation.
“You don’t have any possessions but you do have your kids. It’s such a simple help.”
Tsavaris and others in the Mansfield community initially got involved with Carry The Future in November. She was quickly recruited as a co-coordinator for Carry The Future’s Ohio organization. As a whole, the organization has almost 5,000 volunteers across the world and distributed more than 7,000 baby carriers.
The baby carriers, Tsavaris explained, are soft structured carriers with straps.
“It’s not the wraps or slings,” she noted. “The reason is, the volunteers only have so many minutes with these folks as they’re getting off the boats to fit them, and the others are too hard given the language barrier.”
On Dec. 19, Carry the Future hosted a family-friendly event at Goodale Park in Columbus to raise awareness for the charity and to collect carriers and financial donations. More than 60 parents and children braved the cold temperatures for a one-mile solidarity walk.
“It was a really beautiful celebration of humanity,” Tsavaris said. “Yes we’re so far away, but we’re not.”
At the event, the Somali Islamic Centers of Columbus announced a $10,000 pledge to Carry the Future. Tsavaris explained many of the mosques’ leaders were once refugees.
“Now they are in a position to give back and they want to help,” she said.
For Tsavaris, the event was especially poignant when a young woman from Syria approached her.
“She told me when her friend from Syria came through Greece, one of our volunteers gave her a baby carrier,” Tsavaris said. “She wanted to come and say thank you.”
Through Jan. 10, the local branch of Carry The Future is collecting new and gently used baby carriers at The Little Buckeye Children’s Museum in Mansfield. Donated carriers can also be filled with socks, mittens, hats and protein bars for the babies and their mothers – materials that are desperately needed.
“It’s not everything, this is a very, very small thing to do, but when you have people walking hundreds of miles and especially as a mom, you’re thinking of your own babies and how you would do anything for them,” Tsavaris said. “This is about parents and babies, and not politics. This is about helping people in their darkest hour.”
For more information about Carry the Future, visit www.carrythefuture.org.
