The Addison County Independent reports that Lincoln residents Tom Verner and Janet Fredericks "visited a dozen refugee camps and settlements in Iran [last month] with a delegation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. While most of the group brought supplies or medical care to refugees displaced from their homelands by years or even decades of war, Verner and Fredericks came to entertain refugees with magic tricks and sleight of hand in performances for children." In 2001, the couple founded Magicians Without Borders. The organization has performed "in refugee camps, orphanages, schools and hospitals around the world, from India to Kosovo to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina." The couple "entertains partly to offer relief from the day-to-day problems of living in a camp, but also to bring hope for the future to people who probably don’t have much." After a recent show in Iran, one camp worker told Verner that she'd "never seen the children laugh like this in [her] six years working in [the] camp."

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