By Lucy Gellman
Kiana Ware came back from a pulled Achilles tendon to walk the race, carrying her mom’s immigrant journey with her every step of the way. Aahna Shah ran it for her dad Parth, who came to the U.S. from Gujarat, India, exactly 20 years ago. Diana Mashni hit the pavement for her family, and a home in Palestine from which they have been displaced her entire life.
Nearly 3,000 runners, walkers, and stroller-pushing superheroes filled the streets of East Rock Sunday morning, for Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services’ (IRIS) 16th annual “Run for Refugees.” In its 16 years, the five-kilometer race has become a Super Bowl Sunday tradition, braving multiple presidencies, freezing temps, snow and ice, and a pandemic-era pivot that made the race virtual for a year in 2021.
This year, the race raised a total of $86,411, with a goal of $100,000 (donations are still open). Of 2,953 people who registered, over 2,100 ran in person; more completed the race virtually. Per tradition, it began at Wilbur Cross High School, wound through East Rock Park, and then looped around Livingston, Lawrence and Orange Streets before finishing back on Mitchell Drive.
IRIS Executive Director Chris George: Heartwarming, exciting, humbling.
“On the one hand, it’s really exciting, it’s heartwarming. but it’s also humbling,” said Chris George, IRIS’s executive director, in a phone call Sunday afternoon. “It’s a big responsibility. These people are saying, ‘We believe in this tradition, we believe in this American mission, and we believe in you in welcoming refugees to this country.’ They vote with their feet. They vote when they write us a check. I feel that in a way, they’re our constituents.”
For IRIS, which has resettled 903 refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants since January 2022, it has become “a huge community block party,” George said. For the thousands of people who run, it is also a reminder that many of the country’s newest residents fled their homes as a matter of survival, and are rebuilding their whole lives here in Connecticut. Sunday, some of those refugees stood at the starting line and in an informal cheer section, ready to root each other on. Just second before the starting horn, Azhar Ahmed snuck a glance at her five-year-old son Kuti, and smiled.
That sense of camaraderie wove through every part of the day, from early t-shirt pickups to final goodbyes and award ceremonies that lasted into the early afternoon. In Wilbur Cross’ buzzing gymnasium, friends Kiana Ware and Siana Smith sat against one wall, chatting before they made their way to the starting line. Both are the children of immigrants: Ware’s mother is Filipino, and Smith’s dad is Jamaican. When Ware learned about IRIS’ mission a few months ago, it resonated with her.
