Lexington, Kentucky is home to a large immigrant and refugee population, including the third largest resettled Congolese community in the nation. However, as a non-traditional port of migration, we lack the community supports to adequately serve immigrants. The library worked with other organizations (Fayette County Public Schools, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Lexington Fair Housing Council, Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, LFUCG Human Rights Commission, Migrant Network Coalition, and Southeastern Medical Interpreters Association) to plan and organize a half-day summit to explore the struggles our refugees face.

Beginning in December 2013, representatives from the eight organizations met monthly to plan the agenda, identify speakers for panels, collect information to award CEUs for attendees, plan the cultural celebration that followed the conference, and arrange for food trucks to serve lunch. The library provided the venue for the conference, which was held in June 2014, and free parking for attendees. The LFUCG Human Rights Commission secured a $7,000 grant from HUD to cover conference expenses.

Although refugees face many struggles, we wanted the conference to have a positive feel by focusing on best practices and creative solutions to problems like language barriers so that participants could leave with information to help them overcome obstacles to serving refugees. To emphasize the theme of triumph over struggle, our keynote speaker was a Congolese refugee who resettled in Lexington at age eight and recently graduated high school at the top of her class with a scholarship to the University of Kentucky. We had over 160 attendees from all over the community. By popular demand, this year's conference will be a full day and will include networking lunches, a refugee roundtable presentation, and nine sessions instead of six.