(Radio Iowa) – Fundraising is underway to help refugees settle in central Iowa this year. The U-S Committee for Refugees and Immigrants field office in Des Moines is expecting an influx of refugees in the area after President Biden promised to increase the refugee cap. Even though he hasn’t signed the determination yet, the state should still prepare, according to Kerri True-Funk, the committee’s Des Moines director. “Due to the pandemic, things have been a little bit slow,” True-Funk says, “but we are anticipating as vaccination efforts worldwide are being undertaken and the determination ceiling goes up, that we will get new arriving refugee families.”

True-Funk expects they’ll help settle more than last year’s 75 refugees in central Iowa, but doubts they’ll reach the record of more than 660 refugees set in 2016. “But I do anticipate that, especially as vaccinations roll out and mitigation efforts continue, that the numbers will start to come up,” she says. The organization is raising money to buy mattresses for the expected refugees and ten-percent of the goal has been met so far.

(reporting by Kassidy Arena, Iowa Public Radio)