Amid refugee cuts, newcomers find big opportunity at DU dining hall
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DENVER — On a recent Wednesday morning, the dining hall at the University of Denver buzzed with students in backpacks and sweatpants in line for lunch.
Behind the various food stations, and milling about the cafeteria clearing tables and stacking dishes, is a group of new faces.
For the past year, Sodexo, the food services company that operates and staffs the university’s dining hall, has been on a mission to hire refugees from all over the world. To date, they’ve hired 27 refugees — 26 of them arrived through a partnership with Jewish Family Service of Colorado, a nonprofit that, among other social services, resettles and assists refugees.
“It feels like you’re in an alternate reality for a little bit, because it’s just this immensely diverse group and their diversity is really celebrated [at the dining hall],” said Lilia Anderson, career services program coordinator at Jewish Family Service.
The hiring comes at a time of immense challenges for people seeking refuge in the United States. When President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, he suspended refugee admissions, including those already approved and scheduled to come to the U.S.
In October, Trump announced his administration will cap refugees for this fiscal year at 7,500, the lowest number in American history. Most of those allocations will go to white people from South Africa, known as Afrikaners.
Anderson said 26 is the most hires at once that a company has committed to in the last year at her nonprofit.
“It’s mass hiring and it works really well because we’re able to come to the orientation and bring interpreters, make sure everyone’s on the same page, and whoever needs extra support, we can find a way to get it,” she said.
Of the six students and faculty that Rocky Mountain PBS spoke to around the student center, only one student knew about the initiative. She said she heard about it from one of her professors.
“I think it is really cool that DU is doing that, and it made me excited when I first got here to know that I was going to a school that was being proactive and playing a role in doing stuff like that,” said Lisette Butler, a sophomore studying political science.
The newly hired refugees come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Colombia and Venezuela.
The University of Denver scaled back on its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives this August in order to comply with directives from the Trump administration. But Anderson said several members of the university’s administration spoke at the staff orientation this fall.
“It was a big deal,” she said.
Cairo Rudacyahwa was one of the lucky ones who made it to the U.S. on December 23, 2024 — just a month before Trump closed the country to refugees. A fluent speaker in four languages, including English, Rudacyahwa took a job as a cashier at the dining hall this fall.
Rudacyahwa was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the country of origin for the highest number of refugees in the United States. He lived with his family in exile in a refugee camp in Rwanda for nearly 30 years.
After the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when extremist Hutu militias systematically slaughtered almost one million people, mostly belonging to the Tutsi ethnic minority, violent conflict spread to the neighboring country to the west, the DRC. Many extremist Hutus took refuge in the DRC after the war, and since then, the country has witnessed long-standing conflict, instability and violence. Congolese who speak Kinyarwanda have been targeted, marginalized and attacked.
“The [Congolese] government didn’t want the people to speak Kinyarwanda [my language]. They were always saying, ‘if you speak Kinyarwanda, you don’t belong here,” said Rudacyahwa. So at age seven, Rudacyahwa fled with his family.
Living in the refugee camp in Rwanda was difficult, Rudacyahwa said. “You’re still grateful and very happy for the country that hosted you [Rwanda], but living in the refugee camp, opportunities and everything is limited. Even if you go to school, when you graduate and you come looking for a job, it’s not easy.”
Rudachahwa was lucky to land a job after he graduated form university in 2012, teaching English and mentoring other local English teachers.
While organizations helped resettle refugees in exile in Rwanda as far back as the early 2000s, in 2018, an organization offered to help him apply to the U.S. After that encounter, he went through interviews, medical exams and tests to get him out of the camp.
“I went through all of these steps and I was praying in my head, ‘Am I going to be able to get to the U.S?’” he said.
Five years later, in 2023, his wife and three kids received approval to come to the U.S. A year after that, he was approved to join them. (His parents have since died, and his siblings took refuge in Idaho and France.)
Rudacyahwa initially found a job in Denver working as a freelance interpreter, making $30 to $50 an hour. But the assignments were sporadic, he said, and the income wasn’t reliable. While on an interpreting job for Sodexo at the University of Denver, he inquired about full-time job opportunities and was practically hired on the spot, he said. Although the hourly rate is lower than at his interpretation job, he makes more money per week and has benefits, including health care and a retirement account. He still interprets occasionally on his days off.
Of the 90 employees working in the cafeteria, almost one third are recently arrived refugees. Employees start off making between $19 and $22 an hour depending on the role, said Whitney Couzens, Sodexo’s director of resident dining and marketing at the University of Denver.
The roles — dishwasher, cashier and cook — vary depending on skills, comfort and English-speaking ability.
Couzens said prior to last year, the company had difficulties retaining staff.
“Two years ago we only had English and Spanish speakers in this account and people just didn’t want to stay,” she said. “The job of a dishwasher is very difficult. And I think that people didn't always think about that.”
“A lot of our new Americans have a willingness to get in there and work and learn a new skill,” she said. “They’re able to say, ‘hey, I'll start in the dish room and I'll work my way up.’”
Couzens assumed her job a year ago, initiated the refugee hiring program and has since focused on employee retention and building a talent pipeline with ample growth opportunities.
To date, seven refugees have left for outside jobs, and roughly a dozen have been promoted within Sodexo.
The ongoing support from Jewish Family Service, including translation services and trainings (including, in the beginning, teaching how to take the bus and clock in for work) made the transition seamless, said Couzens.
“That’s allowed us to take on even more new Americans,” she said.
Jewish Family Service also led trainings for Sodexo managers to help them understand the refugee experience and the traumas some of them experienced.
With employees from so many different countries, communicating with one another has been challenging, but not impossible.
“We speak different languages and have different cultures, but this has never been an issue,” said Bunani Zayirwa, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Zayirwa spoke to Rocky Mountain PBS with the help of Rudacyahwa’s translations. “We use gestures and we try to learn each other’s languages. What’s amazing is we actually can understand each other,” he said.
While Rudacyahwa ultimately has bigger dreams to go back to teaching or interpreting or another profession, he said he’s enjoyed being a cashier and helping with other jobs around the dining hall.
“Whenever there is an opportunity, I don’t hesitate to take it,” he said. “It's really a big privilege to be here serving the student community.”
“Whenever there is an opportunity, I don’t hesitate to take it,” he said. “It's really a big privilege to be here serving the student community.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.