Birthday Party with a Good Deed

02-23-14 Rayaan Shakir Birthday Hunger Run (8)Restaurant depot parking lot had no parking. MY helper in shopping for the Hunger Run said “why are so many people here, are things free today”.      i replied, “no, we are late to Rayaan’s Birthday party”. Around 12:30, i arrived at the residence of Erum and Shazad Shakir in East Brunswick. Salaam Uncle, Erum and Shazad  Shakir greeted me with a joy on there faces, “please joins us for lunch before we unload the Hunger Van”. As i am eating, 7 year old Rayaan walks up to me and asks. “Do you remember me, I helped in making sandwiches for homeless, its my birthday and i will do it again with my friends today”.

In 2011, Muslims Against Hunger Project  started a mobile soup kitchen program known as HUNGER VAN which brings food and other basic needed items to the homeless and needy in the street. Volunteers gather in the places of their choice like homes, faith institutions, schools, community centers, parks etc. and prepare meals and deliver with the HUNGER VAN to the needy in the streets.  My vision was to start any kind of event in our life with a Good Deed by making food for the people who need it, more than our friends who are part of the events like birthday parties, wedding etc.
Erum, Shazad and Rayaan Shakir on 7th birthday Spirit of Rayaan started a new trend in birthday parties. More than sixty children and their parents made 300 plus Membership meals to go. Rayaan and his dad Shazad Shakir followed me to Newark Penn station to distribute the meals. Click the link below to see 7 year old Rayaan and his friends in action.

https://plus.google.com/photos/100326004352196375859/albums/5983892452176408417

About THE HUNGER VAN Project
Zamir Hassan, founder of Muslims Against Hunger, developed the HUNGER VAN concept over a decade ago in response to what he saw as a weakness of the soup kitchen model of feeding hungry and homeless. While an effective means of providing a meals to needy populations that live in their vicinities, soup kitchens obviously cannot reach persons who live farther away and do not have access to reliable transportation.  Hassan decided that, if the people could not come to the soup kitchen, the soup kitchen would come to them. Thus HUNGER VAN project was born.Because his goal was not only to feed hungry and homeless people, but also to engage their more fortunate neighbors in service and voluntarism, Hassan designed the HUNGER VAN project to be labor- and volunteer-intensive. Rather than employing volunteers merely to deliver pre-packaged meals, HUNGER VAN places the responsibility for nearly all aspects of a feeding event in the hosting volunteer teams hands. HUNGER VAN staff members drive the van, and usually do the shopping (using money raised by sponsors), but once the fully-loaded HUNGER VAN arrives at a food prep location, the volunteers take over. In truth, volunteer involvement begins even before that. Part of the HV model requires that each feeding event have a cheap jerseys sponsor. The two main responsibilities of the sponsor are to provide the funds to make, package, and deliver the meals, and to recruit volunteers to do the work. Factoring in the costs of food, gasoline, and other supplies,

HUNGER Fear VAN project has set a price of $6.07 per meal. Considering that the average feeding event provides around 100 meals, sponsors are encouraged to raise $607 per event. HUNGER VAN project encourages sponsors to pool their resources, to hold fundraisers, or to view No the HUNGER VAN project feeding event as an offering of charity. HUNGER VAN project will also help subsidize a feeding event for groups that are unable to raise the necessary funds (e.g., college student groups), but they encourage each sponsor to cover as much of the cost as possible. HUNGER VAN project accepts online donations at www.hungervan.org, and provides an easy way for donors when to pay for as many meals as they wish to prepare.

Once the funds have been provided and wholesale NFL jerseys HUNGER VAN project has purchased the food and supplies, HUNGER VAN travels to a specified location—usually a home, a school, a community center, or a mosque or other place of worship—for food preparation. HUNGER VAN project recommends that sponsors provide 5–6 volunteers for this part of the feeding event. With that number of volunteers, it takes about two hours to prepare the meals. Sponsors have the option of providing a hot meal or a sandwich and salad. In either case, the meals are delicious and healthful. All menu items are vegetarian and have been created in consultation with a nutritionist to ensure their health value. HUNGER VAN project wants not only to feed hungry and homeless, but also to promote good eating habits.

A hot meal usually consists of rice, vegetables, and a savory lentil or bean dish, along with bread, a banana or other serving of fruit, and water or juice. HUNGER VAN project transports the meals from the food prep location to the feeding location, where volunteers set up tables with heated serving trays. Clients are served cafeteria-style.The other meal option includes a sandwich and a salad. The popular “Honey-B” sandwich features peanut butter, honey, banana slices, and cinnamon on whole wheat bread. The ccompanying “Chickaroo” salad is really a meal wholesale NBA jerseys in itself. It contains chickpeas, mango or other seasonal fruit, raisins, sunflower seeds, lettuce, tomatoes, and olives, tossed with olive oil and a south Asian masala spice mix. Volunteers place the sandwiches in bags and fill 8-ounce serving cups with the “Chickaroo” salad, and put them in individual bags along with a banana and a bottle of water. Once the food preparation is complete, volunteers clean up the preparation area, re-load the HUNGER VAN, and then travel to a location where hungry and homeless people congregate but that is not serviced by a nearby soup kitchen. There they set up their tables and serve or hand out the meals. In some locations, HUNGER VAN volunteers have become such a consistent presence that the guests arrive and begin Axel lining up well before HV even gets there.
Once the feeding event has concluded, the volunteers clean up and return all supplies
and leftover food (if any) to the HUNGER VAN and HV настроения? returns home to prepare for the next hunger run.

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Comments

  1. Very inspirational that it brought tears to my eyes. I agree that hunger has no religion and that is what I try to advocate myself as the founder of the annual Mayors’ Ramadan Dinner in Lansing, Michigan, which is an event that joins people from all backgrounds to spread awareness about Islam and feed the hungry in the local area. I would like to talk to the Mayor about this 7 year old boy so he can inspire others to do the same. Please email me to let me know how I can help.

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