LOCKLAND, Ohio — Khalidou Sy is shopping for diapers. He grabs a handful and shoves them into his bag. Next month, his wife is having a baby. He laughs because sometimes he can’t believe it.
Sy fled his country in West Africa to escape slavery and military oppression almost 10 months ago.
“Some got raped, some got killed,” he said. “Bad things happened.”
He came to America with nothing. No clothes. No food. No place to live.
“You only have hope,” Sy said.
On a recent Friday, there were several bicycles parked in front of the Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center in Lockland. People lined up outside before it opened.
This is where Sy found hope.
He says people from Mauritania call it the “House of God.”
It’s a place where hundreds of asylum seekers come for food, clothes and help filing legal documents. A place where Sy translates for a man who didn’t know what he needed to bring.
“Helping people was like gas ... in my machine,” he said.
And the Mauritanian refugees need it. Because after filing for asylum, it can take months for a work permit to be granted.
In 2023, more than 2,700 Mauritanians came to Ohio, according to a Washington Post analysis of U.S. customs and border protection data. More than half of those came to Greater Cincinnati.
It was an influx of people the owner of this nonprofit thought might put them out of business.
“People showed up at our door, and they were hungry,” said John Keuffer, CEO of Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center. “And that’s our mission, we feed hungry people.”
Keuffer said he asked government officials from all over for help, but no one did. So he relied on people like Sy who helped translate for other Mauritanians before his work permit was approved.
“Take the immigration part of it out it,” Keuffer said. “When you have people who are hungry, it can become an ugly recipe.”
A few blocks away, Vincent Wilson strums on bicycle spokes. He said you can almost play it like a guitar. He’s essentially tuning it.
“You can hear it,” he said.
Sy knows Wilson well.
“He gave me a first bike — someone stole it. He gave me a second bike, and somebody stole it,” Sy said. “So he gave me a third bike with a lock.”
Wilson teaches English as a second language in the building next door. He has for two years. But one week, the number of students in his classes went from a couple dozen to 150.
An avid bike rider, Wilson soon noticed how far the people in his class walked every day. They had no other way to get around. He started seeking donations from bike riders he knew.
“Three bikes turned into 10 bikes turned into 40 bikes,” he said. “And, at that point, I thought this is unsustainable.”
In part, the bicycles kept breaking. Because the Mauritanians put hundreds of miles on them. Wilson started a makeshift repair shop, fixing bikes and teaching others how to fix them.
The shop doesn’t have a name. There are parts scattered all over the ground, and almost no one speaks English. Wilson works on bikes there every Friday afternoon.
When asked what it means to do this work, he laughed and shook his head.
“It's kind of everything,” he said.
As for Sy, he doesn’t need a bike anymore. After he gets his diapers, he drives away from the food pantry in a car. He’s got to get back to work, where he says he recently got a raise because his boss wants him to stay.
But beyond that, Sy doesn’t know if he and his family will be able to stay in America. A hearing in his asylum case is scheduled for next year.
“Is there hope here? Of course,” he said. “Because this is a free country.”
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If you’d like to help the Lockland bike shop, Wilson says donations in any condition are welcome. You can donate here: https://queencitybike.org/donate/
More information about how to donate to Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center can be found here: https://www.vicrc.org/donations/
