Home > Features > Muslim Group Fights Hunger on Long Island

Latest Post

Muslim Group Fights Hunger on Long Island

Posted May 26, 2010 by Ted Hesson

The families, working poor, and homeless who depend on the free lunch at the Mary Brennan Inn, a soup kitchen in Hempstead, are accustomed to hearty meals, but several items that were on the menu this Tuesday aren’t the typical midday fare.

Volunteers served steaming trays of chicken Tandoori and vegetable pulao alongside the soups, bread, salad, and pie that are usually provided for those in need.

The subcontinental cuisine wasn’t just a chef’s whimsy, though. Volunteers from the Muslims Against Hunger Project—a group that began in Morristown, N.J., but has spread across 20 cities in the U.S. and Canada—visited the soup kitchen, and they brought a taste of India and Pakistan along with them.

Among the dozen or so Muslim volunteers who spent the afternoon at the soup kitchen on Tuesday was the founder of the Muslims Against Hunger Project, Zamir Hassan.

Hassan, a 60-year-old freelance computer consultant who lives in Bedminster, N.J., came up with the idea for the program when he took a group of kids from his son’s school to a Morristown soup kitchen in 2000. Hassan, who was born in India, grew up in Pakistan, and migrated to the U.S. in 1973, was surprised to see such poverty in the U.S.

“I was shocked,” he said. “I was like, ‘Where did all these people come from?’”

Afterward, Hassan felt a calling, which he related to a teaching of Mohammad:

“If your neighbor goes to bed hungry and you’re sleeping a stomach full, then you have not fulfilled your obligation as a Muslim,” Hassan said.

In 2002, he created the Muslims Against Hunger Project, which offers step-by-step guidelines to Muslims who want to start similar programs in their communities. The program serves approximately 1,000 meals per month to people in six different states.

During the winter months and Ramadan—when Muslims are fasting, and more aware of hunger issues, according to Hassan—the service day in Hempstead can draw as many as 80 to 100 volunteers.

On Tuesday, however, just over a dozen volunteers made it to the soup kitchen, which turned out to be adequate since the number of soup kitchen patrons is lower at this time of year, with about 325 to 350 people stopping for lunch.

Volunteers, who had already received an email from Hassan briefing them on what to expect during the day of service, started the day with an instructional talk from a staff member from the Mary Brennan Inn, and then moved on to lunch preparations.

Hassan uses Facebook, Twitter, and email blasts to keep volunteers alerted to upcoming service days, and estimates that the average age for volunteers is 23 years old. Several of those helping at the soup kitchen today mirrored that trend.

Afrina Khan, a 21-year-old recent graduate of Hunter College who lives in Franklin Square, said that she heard about the service day through “a random invite” on Facebook.

“I had some free time and I wanted to use it in the best way possible,” she said as she prepared for the lunch crowd by rolling napkin “burritos” filled with plastic utensils.

Adilah Rehman, who learned about the opportunity through the Muslim Student Association at the New York Institute of Technology, where she’s a sophomore, said that volunteering helps change how some people on Long Island perceive Muslims.

“People say Muslims aren’t active in the community,” said Rehman, who was born in Pakistan, but has lived in Queens since she was an infant. “It’s a good way to show who we are and what we do.”

Not all volunteers were college-aged, however. Abdul Basir Kazi, a 63-year-old biochemist and Manhasset resident, has been donating his time to the Muslims Against Hunger Project since he met Hassan five years ago.

Like Hassan, Kazi was born in India, raised in Pakistan, and attended the University of Karachi. Also like Hassan, Kazi said that volunteering at the soup kitchen has made him more aware of poverty in the U.S., as opposed to the poverty that he has witnessed abroad:

“In this country, we are so lucky to have a meal on our table,” he said. “This reminds us that some people are not so fortunate.”

Here’s a slideshow of photos taken during Tuesday’s day of service: