Mpls. Somalis raise funds for homeland refugee camps

The famine in their homeland hit home for a group of young Somalis in south Minneapolis, and they came up with a classically American response: a car wash fundraiser.

"20 years ago, I was in a predicament where I was in a refugee camp. And no one could imagine that here today, being a college graduate and working that that was me, 20 years ago. But I know. That was my reality," said volunteer Ifrah Esse, a U of M grad who now works for Target Corp. "When I see pictures, when I see people starving, when I see people that have no hope. I can relate to that."

Proceeds from the car wash at Cub Foods on Lake Street, and several other fundraisers held over the weekend, will go to the Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee, which is supplying emergency aid to about 11,000 people in two southern Somalia refugee camps.

"I feel like it's our turn now to take over and change our destinies and change our, future because that's our country and people there are suffering, you know?" said St. Catherine University student Muna Farah, of Edina. "Our parents' generation are tired of it, so I feel it's our time."

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