The fourteen year civil war in Liberia was an experience that left a deep impression on Caring for All founder Vera Dixon.   Vera was 11 years old when the war broke out in her country in 1989.  During the war, Vera’s grandmother and 4 brothers were murdered because of their ethnic background.  Later she fled as a refugee to Ghana, alone.    Vera was able to connect with family members in Ghana, but was left primarily to fend for herself.   She clearly remembers seeing family, friends, and neighbors hungry and poor. She also had a child in her youth.  As a mother, Vera struggled to provide for her daughter, yet she witnessed her daughter repeatedly fall sick due to malnutrition.  

As a refugee, Vera moved between the Ivory Coast and Ghana searching for family members and ways out of poverty.  In 2001 she took the opportunity to come to the United States to explore a safer and more peaceful life for her and her daughter.  There, she finally reunited with her father and other families after many years of separation.   Sadly, Vera’s father passed away in 2005 and her brother in 2009, both from colon cancer, a cancer that is easily treated if detected and treated early.   Yet in Liberian culture, the health issues of an individual are kept private, and most times individuals seek medical treatment when  it almost too late. 

Such experiences left Vera angry with the way health decisions were made in her community to the detriment of individuals and families.   This anger led to a calling fellow immigrant community to advocacy and action through education about the importance of regular testing, prevention, and awareness of the diseases to look for.

While on her first trip back to Ghana and Liberia in 2005, Vera realized the need for hurting people who had also lost their families, gone through trauma of war or had been separated from loved ones.  In a community where people typically care only for their closest family members, there was the clear need for an organization that was willing to care for all.

When Vera came back from her this trip, she established Caring for All, Inc. to provide a venue for child school sponsorship, collected food, medicine, and toys that were then sent with organizations that were heading to the rural areas of Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.   In 2006 she began to use what resources she had to also serve the community directly around her in the Northwest Twin Cities.  With the support of family, friends, and charitable givers, she has continued to care for those how need it most and do so out of a heart of good will.