The Multicultural Community Resource Center is celebrating 50 years of helping refugees get settled in Erie.

Since 1975, the M.C.R.C.  has worked to help families looking to start chapters of their lives.


Katie Kretz, the Executive Director explained, We primarily work with the refugee population and again those are people who have come here through legal pathways. "


The staff made up of 70 people are the first ones to greet a family when they get off the plane. 


"It's really humbling to watch a family get off an airplane, they have been traveling for days, again, their journey starts years prior. It takes anywhere between ten and fifteen years to be authorized to come into the United States, so when they finally get here, we are the first faces they are seeing and we want to make that memorable", said Kretz.


The M.C.R.C. offers ESL classes, youth services, child care, and after school programs. It's in the classrooms that not only adults can learn basic life skills, but there's courses for kids and they have an elder program too.


They provides resources for people for up to five years after they arrive, then that some of their clients have chosen to return and work for the organization. As Kretz explained, "Many of the staff that we have here were refugees themselves, so they have walked the path, they have been in the shoes of the client so they can have more of a connection with them. They speak the same language."


That includes Anna Mashike who came to the United States with her family 22 years ago from Ukraine and now works helping families get settled.
As Mashike explained,  "Knowing how difficult it is to navigate a new country, how difficult it is to navigate through the new system, I feel like I am obligated to share this with other ones, since I know something, I want to share it with other ones."