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Hundreds of Afghans arrive at Northern Virginia Community College, greeted by outpouring of support



Streams of people drop off donations at Northern Virginia Community College’s Annandale campus to aid the hundreds of Afghan refugees or Special Immigrant Visa recipients who arrived overnight from Kabul. (Meagan Flynn/The Washington Post)

By Meagan Flynn
Yesterday at 7:04 p.m. EDT

They kept coming: people carrying bags of clothes, bags of toiletries, bags of diapers and baby formula and toys and books.

All were donations for the hundreds of Afghan refugees or Special Immigrant Visa recipients who arrived overnight Saturday at Northern Virginia Community College after a harrowing evacuation from Afghanistan.

By morning, dozens of volunteers had assembled at the Annandale campus. And by noon, the piles of donations had grown so high that volunteers had to turn some away.

“I’ll take phone chargers!” yelled 22-year-old Salima Khan to the crowd of people trying to deliver donations.

“She said to only bring the duffel bags!” one woman said as she dropped them off.

Fleeing Afghanistan after the country fell to the Taliban, several hundred Afghans touched down at Dulles International Airport on Friday and were shuttled overnight to the Northern Virginia college, in what for some was their first experience in the United States. The Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management set up more than 500 cots — provided by the college — in an event center, gymnasium and community rooms, said Hoang-Dung Nguyen, a spokeswoman for the college. Volunteers have been bringing pizzas and snacks and water.

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By Meagan Flynn
Meagan Flynn covers the Virginia, Maryland and D.C. congressional delegations on The Post's Metro team. She was previously a reporter at the Houston Press and the Houston Chronicle. Twitter https://twitter.com/Meagan_Flynn