Actor Raises $393K for Troy-Bound Refugee

• Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

TROY, MI - From a local fund-raiser started by a University of Michigan student from Troy to a nearly $393,000 global effort by actor and filmmaker Edward Norton, donations are pouring in to support a Troy-bound Syrian refugee whose haunting story of loss and hope for a better life touched tens of thousands of people around the world.

The story of the unnamed man, a scientist, unfolded in seven posts on the Humans of New York blog. The blog quickly became an Internet sensation with tens of thousands of likes and shares, and even drew an official response from President Obama.

Seven members of the refugee’s family, including his wife and a daughter, were killed two years ago when a government anti-personnel missile loaded with 116 shrapnel- and needle-filled bombs tore through his family’s compound, literally chewing victims to pieces.

Related

• Read Obama’s ‘Sweet Welcome’ to Troy-Bound Syrian
• Troy Student Raises Thousands for Syrian Refugee

Norton, who starred with Brad Pitt in “Fight Club” and “American History X,” wrote on his Crowdrise campaign site that the man’s story moved him to tears.

“This man has suffered profound loss that would crush the spirit of many people and yet he still passionately wants a chance to contribute positively to the world,” Norton wrote. “If we don’t welcome people like this into our communities and empower his dream of making an impact with his life, then we’re not the country we tell ourselves we are.

“Let’s reject the ‘anti-human’ voices that tell us to fear refugees and show this man and his family what Americans are really made of. Let’s show that a country built by the energy and dreams of immigrants still believes in brave people who come here with hope for better life.”

All money raised will go directly to help the man’s family, to pay for medical treatment for cancer that has been spreading in his stomach, and to help his family “build a new, stable life after their tragedy,” Norton wrote.

Any funds that aren’t used will go to the 11 other refugees whose stories are profiled in “The Syrian Americans,” a new series on Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York blog, which tells the stories of strangers in New York City.

In Michigan, nearly $16,000 had been raised by early Monday morning on a GoFundMe campaign started by U-M student Daniel Mingee Kang, who told the Detroit Free Press he is now directing everyone to Norton’s official fund-raiser.

“I just felt that it was something I could do,” Kang told the Free Press. “Seeing as this man is coming to my hometown ... It just felt very personal.”

On GoFundMe, Kang wrote:

“I find it unacceptable that a man this capable doesn’t have the resources to apply his intellect to the benefit of humanity. Most refugees come with little more than what they can carry with them to America. This is a donation drive to establish this man in Troy and garner what little funding we can for his projects. All funding will go straight to him.”

The man and his family are expected to arrive in Troy before the first of the year, Sean Defour, a representative of the Lutheran Social Services, told WJBK-TV.

He added that the refugees from Syria are “the most rigorously screened population in the U.S.”

» Photo of Edward Norton via Wikipedia / Creative Commons