Every service call can become a second life for someone's home.

Tech Aid for Refugees is a registered 501(c)(3) public nonprofit (EIN 93-3707362) founded in September 2023, based in San Ramon, serving the San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento metropolitan areas. We help newly-arrived refugee and asylum-seeker families furnish their first American homes — with donated and refurbished appliances, furniture, and household essentials. Over a hundred families helped so far, primarily Ukrainian families who fled the war and arrived with almost nothing. Others are political refugees from Russia who opposed the regime, like our own family was in 2019. Some are from other conflict regions. The mission is simple: the difference between a mattress on the floor and a functioning home, we give to them now — because that difference was made for us when we arrived.

When we arrived in the U.S. with almost nothing, strangers helped us. A neighbor bought us a mattress — two hundred dollars we couldn’t spare at the time. He said: “When you’re on your feet, remember people in the same place.” A few years later, a client decided not to repair a microwave. I asked if I could take it. I fixed it and delivered it to a church in Sacramento that serves refugee families. That was the start.