Sometime within the next three to six weeks, refugee families are expected to settle in the region through the efforts of several local groups.

Efforts are underway in Old Lyme, Ledyard and New London to financially support and assist refugees relocating to the United States through the New Haven-based Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services.

In late March, representatives from three Old Lyme churches completed one of the final steps required to qualify for hosting a refugee family. The churches teamed up late last summer to work on the project.

"It's the final hurdle we needed to cross," Steve Jungkeit, pastor of Old Lyme Congregational Church, said of the training that some of his parishioners, as well as those from St. Ann's Episcopal and Christ the King Roman Catholic churches, completed in New Haven on March 31.

Like other faith groups moved by the well-publicized plight of refugees in Europe, especially those from Syria, including a 3-year-old boy whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach last September, the Old Lyme collaborators have been organizing for months to support these newcomers to the United States.

The co-sponsors will not know the size of the families or groups they will help or where exactly they are coming from until two weeks before they arrive.

"But we will be ready," Jungkeit said.

Asked whether the Old Lyme group has faced any resistance, Jungkeit said, "Occasionally a tiny bit, but for the most part, nothing significant to speak of... For the most part, there is widespread understanding that this is a humanitarian crisis, and that can bring out the worst, and the best, in people."

He explained that the refugees will have been through a grueling process before their arrival.

"We do know that these people have been in the pipeline for two years, and they have undergone an intense amount of scrutiny," he said. "If there's going to be a terrorist coming to this country, the last way they would enter is as part of a refugee program."

Rabbi Rachel Safman of the Congregation Beth El in New London, who is working with the New London group, said helping is the right thing to do.

"We in the Jewish community, given how many of our families were refugees back a generation or two ago, thank God we are in a position to help and extend a hand and allow these people to find a real sanctuary and a place to rebuild their lives," she said. "And we are cautiously hopeful that we will cut our teeth on one or two families over time and become a bit of a nucleus for a cluster of families who will put down roots and become a part of our community."

Like others in the church groups, Rabbi Safman said it's unclear where the refugees will come from.

"We may be talking about the plight of Syrians or Iraqis, but we may end up with someone from the Congo," she said.

The Rev. Anne E. Fuhrmeister from Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Waterford agreed.

"We may have been galvanized by a particular situation, but really, it is the wider refugee situation in the world that we are looking at now," she said. "Churches have been very involved, and they are interested in remaining involved."

As part of the process, each group has been asked to raise $3,000 or more, and to identify safe, clean housing and furnishings for their guests. They are also tasked with assigning representatives who will assist the refugees with transportation, health care, employment, language, education and cultural issues. The New London effort is a project of the Greater New London Clergy Association, local Rotary clubs and others, including volunteers from Connecticut and Mitchell colleges.

It started last October, with a visit from Chris George, executive director of IRIS in New Haven, to a heavily attended New London Rotary Club meeting. George spoke about the need for co-sponsors to help resettle refugee families in the state. Since that time, the clergy association has taken the lead with support from local Rotaries.

Cheryl Molina, an elder at Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Waterford, and Fuhrmeister, the pastor, are working with Ron Ward, a member of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New London, to raise the necessary funds and to designate qualified volunteers to handle all the other required tasks and responsibilities.

"It's taking us a little longer, but the reason is that we are bigger and we don't want to do just one family. We want to do this over and over. We want to resettle many families," said Molina, who works in private practice as a psychotherapist and has volunteered for IRIS in the past.

Like the Old Lyme group, the New London co-sponsors are close to notifying IRIS that they are ready for their first newcomers.

IRIS, a program of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the local affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries and the Immigration and Refugee Program of Church World Service, resettles approximately 200 refugees each year from countries including Afghanistan, the Congo, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq and Sudan.

In addition to resettling families, Molina said her group is in the midst of establishing a nonprofit that ideally will operate a kitchen, or make a food product, someday, as part of job training for the resettled refugees. She likened the idea to the Providence Granola Project, in operation since 2008, where everything is made from scratch and hand-packed by refugees from around the world, with all proceeds going toward a job training program.

Ward said the U.S. government requires refugees resettling in this country to be financially self-sufficient within six months, so it is integral that they get job training and find employment as quickly as possible.

"Someone may end up in an entry-level job, like dishwashing or washing cars, and maybe they were an engineer, or a social worker, or a business owner. But they need to find (a quick) opportunity to start working," he said.

Ledyard Congregational Church has completed preparations to accept a refugee family that it will co-sponsor with IRIS, according to David Holdridge, a member of the church's board of trustees.

"We have completed the list and informed them that we are ready," Holdridge said, adding that the church notified IRIS several weeks ago and expects to hear who and how many are coming in the next few weeks.

While refugees arrive with a small amount of cash, the host groups are asked to provide an additional $3,000 per family to help ease the first few months of the transition. They also secure a home or apartment, furnish it and connect to utilities.

Molina said donations have started to come in, but that the New London group wants to raise more than $3,000 so it is quickly ready for a second group once it settles its first refugees.

"We don't want to lose out on the interest, enthusiasm and caring of all those volunteers who have said they want to help," she said.

"We are almost ready to give the green light to IRIS," Ward said. "And we hope to have our first family by the end of April or early May. The money is coming in, and by doing all this work, all this planning, we will know what else is needed. We definitely need our training wheels right now."

a.baldelli@theday.com