Father Biju Kannampuzha and the St. John Vianney community presented a cheque for $30,000 to sponsor one family of Syrian refugees.

As thousands of people continue to flee Iraq and Syria, people at the church are reaching out to bring one family to Barrie.

"We are not concerned about where they come from. We thought that this is the time for us to do something and create some awareness among the parishioners, again this helps us build up our own community," says Kannampuzha.

Multiculturalism is an important part of this parish. At the church's annual family heritage festival on Sunday, immigrants were happy to be helping other come to Canada.

"Being a Canadian now, it's also my duty now to do the same thing, as what others tried to help us, to try to help them come over here,” says Biju Devassy.  

With images of desperation and devastation, this group isn't alone in its push to help refugees, having spurred several sponsorship campaigns in Barrie, Orillia, Midland and Collingwood.

“It’s great that when the news is often so negative, here we are hearing positive news, of Canadians, of many different backgrounds feeling that they need to help people who they may very well never meet," says Paul La Pume.

The goal is to bring a family from Syria here in about eight months. The money raised will help provide a home and food for the family for the first year.