Staff Highlight: Jesse
It isn’t often that you hear of people dedicated to helping others in need, especially in extreme situations like natural disasters or humanitarian crises. The Us Together Columbus office was more than lucky to find that in one of our interns, Jesse Matos. Jesse is a 25-year-old college student from Marengo, Ohio who has a passion to serve others. He’s currently getting his degree in Disaster Management from Grand Canyon University but he’s not new to the field. Prior to diving into humanitarian work, Jesse studied to be a missionary and even became certified in Missions. However, it would be the unfortunate COVID-19 pandemic that would turn his eye to helping others who were going through extremely devastating events.
Jesse first project was decontaminating N95 masks with The Battelle CCDS Critical Care Decontamination System™. This took him to Washington D.C. where up to 80,000 N95 masks were decontaminated every day. While working on this project, Jesse discovered that disaster relief was the niche that filled him the most. So, once his time at Battelle concluded, Jesse continued to search for opportunities to aid in disastrous situations. He soon found out about a nonprofit organization that traveled around the world providing immediate aid and support after a disaster called Team Rubicon. They deploy groups of veterans and first responders to provide relief to those impacted by a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis.
Jesse’s first project with them was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana providing relief after a storm, then a flood in Detroit, Michigan. His responsibilities fluctuated from picking up trash to mucking but his specialty was in decontamination. Most would be concerned with the safety of being in all these environments, but Jesse says he’s never been concerned about that as all his projects took safety extremely seriously. More of his challenges began once the devastating news came from Afghanistan last summer.
Almost everyone saw the infamous footage of thousands of Afghans fighting desperately to get on one of the last planes flying out of the country, but it was Jesse who received the call the day it happened. With a swiftness, Jesse was deployed to Dulles, Virginia, one of few airports where the Afghan evacuees were being flown to as the crisis unfolded. There he provided services and worked with other organizations like Full Central Kitchen to provide them with their basic needs. However, meeting their basic needs proved to be challenging with barriers such as American traditions/expectations, and mental health.
Despite those barriers, Jesse felt compelled and so connected with the Afghan community that wanted to continue to serve them which is how he ended up at US Together! He currently serves as a Resettlement & Placement Case manager and Afghan Placement Assistance/Preferred Communities Coordinator. With his time at US Together, Jesse has been able to help families create a self-sufficiency plan as well as coordinate resources for them. On a day-to-day basis, his responsibilities would include connecting clients to a food bank, collecting immigration documents, providing cultural orientation about rent and utilities, and connecting clients to emergency services.
Jesse says, “The best part was being able to connect my base experience, to getting clients settled from hotels, helping them get established in the US, to finally seeing them become self-sustaining contributing members to the US. “
As he continues to make a positive impact with this community, Jesse still has the heart and determination to help others in need. He recently went to Kentucky to help with a flooding in the area and unfortunately, he’ll be leaving us shortly after to continue doing so. Although we’re sad to see him go we are so honored to have had Jesse be part of our UST Team. He’s truly a gem and we know he’ll continue to do amazing work with the Afghan community.