The political climate surrounding refugee assistance is a tense situation today, but a local group strives to educate Iowans about the plight of refugees and seeks to assist immigrants.

The Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Commission in Mount Pleasant is holding a fundraiser called Soup for Syria today at Mount Pleasant’s First Presbyterian Church.

Commission member Sam Riepe explains the group’s motivations, “One thing that everybody in our group shares is a love of diversity, and a love of being able to help, wherever we can help people whether it be abroad, like we are here with Syria, or even locally as far as immigrant groups that come here to live and providing assistance or community to them however we may. That’s something that hasn’t wavered since our very beginning regardless of what has happened in the world or in our country or in politics.”

Community members will be bringing their own favorite soups to serve, inspired by the book “Soup for Syria”. Riepe talks about the event, “We were looking for some sort of event that we could do that would bring people together, and it just so happened that we came across a book called ‘Soup for Syria’ where the proceeds of the sales of this cookbook go to a U.N. organization that provides food for Syrian refugees and we just thought ‘Hey that’s something we could do’.”

There will be a free-will donation and the commission will be selling copies of the book at the supper. There will also be a showing of the documentary “4.1 Miles”, about the European migrant crisis. The proceeds of the event will be going to United Nations.