At least 1,300 people pledged and raised more than $2,400 to help the Central Virginia Food Bank during last week’s Fast-a-Thon sponsored by VCU’s Muslim Students’ Association.
Ali M. Faruk, MSA president, said some 350 students, faculty and others celebrated the event during a special dinner sponsored by VCU’s Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and 20 local businesses. The Student Government Association also helped sponsor the event.
Dressed in their Fast-a-Thon T-shirts, MSA members served the Friday night dinner that began with a prayer followed by a speech by Sohaib Mohiuddin, former MSA president, discussing the purposes of Ramadan and the fast.
“We are gathered here today for various reasons,” he said. “We are here from aspects of religion to ideas of homelessness and the idea of unity.”
Mohiuddin later asked for a show of hands by the people who fasted from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday. About half of the people raised their hands as Mohiuddin thanked and congratulated them for pledging and trying their best for this
cause.
Julian Thrower, a first-year sports-medicine major, said fasting became difficult for him by mid-afternoon that day.
“It was hard, but at about 3 p.m. I broke my fast with a footlong sub from Subway,” he said. “I almost held off until 5 p.m., but next year I’m going to try to do it again for the whole month so I can cleanse my body.”
Rama Suleman Mwanundu, a senior business and economics major, said he learned what fasting means to him.
“Fasting is a good experience,” he said. “You get to know what it feels like to be hungry and to control your intentions. Drinking a lot of water and eating low carbohydrates the night before helped me throughout the day.”
While MSA and Muslim students left the room for a Maghrib (sunset) prayer during the intermission, the audience watched a video concerning issues about the nation’s homeless and hungry people.
After the MSA students returned from prayer, Marcus Johnson, a first-year student and MSA member, talked to the audience about hunger stimulation.
“The purpose of the stimulation is to show that we complain and bicker about so many simple things,” he said. “Please be glad that you have somewhere to eat tonight. And be glad that you have these choices that you have, because there are people out there who are begging for a chance to have a bill to claim or a roof over their head, and the choice they have is absolutely nothing.
“Without humility to God, we feel it’s not only our obligation, but our right to help those who are in need.”
The event’s main speaker, Hadia Mubarak, president of MSA National, discussed God’s consciousness and social values.
“By knowing and realizing that God sees us at all times it actually engenders a sense of human accountability,” she said. “You can’t turn away from someone who is in need of help … although no one else may see you, you know that God is there and he is aware of everything that you are doing.”
Other guest speakers included Reuban Rodriguez, associate vice provost and dean of students; Patricia Morris, chief development officer for the food bank; Timothy Hulsey, director of the University Honors Program; and Napoleon Peoples, director of multicultural student affairs.
“Fast-a-Thon symbolizes something that we should be about every single day,” Peoples said. “This is my third time I’ve been here, and what I’m really excited about is that there are more participants every year.”
Hulsey concluded the program with his remarks about moral values.
“Your actions must convey the purity of your heart,” he said. “Cultivate the ideas and actions that serve the advancement of humanity and find humanity in your own humanity.”
Learn more about VCU’s Muslim Students’ Association at www.studentorg.vcu.edu/msa. For more information about fast-a-thons nationally go to www.fast-a-thon.org.
| Fast-a-Thon’s Purpose “During the Islamic month of Ramadan (which began October 14, 2004), Muslims fast during daylight hours as an act of submission, solidarity, and remembrance. One of the main reasons for fasting is to call attention to those who go hungry every day, not as an exercise of religious expression, but as a fact of life. In Richmond alone, as many as 200 calls for emergency food may be placed in a single day to area food pantries, soup kitchens, and other emergency food providers. Hunger is not something that only happens “over there” in some faraway land. It happens right here, in our city, right now. To respond to this deplorable situation, the Muslim Students’ Association has organized the a day of hunger awareness . . . ” — Courtesy of the MSA Web site |