Your Zakat At Work

Zakat Chicago grant quadruples families served at Sanad Food Pantry

The Sanad Food Pantry has been a fixture of the Chicago Lawn area for the past 30 years, serving as the lifeblood of the community since their doors first opened. Sanad, over the past three decades, has committed itself to providing meals, distributing food boxes, and running coat drives, among countless other services, to those who need them most. And once the Coronavirus pandemic started, resulting in millions across the country losing their jobs and children losing access to school lunches, Sanad knew it had to rise up and meet those needs.

Zakat Chicago has been supporting the Sanad Food Pantry for over a decade. Our help during the COVID-19 pandemic was able to triple Sanad’s budget. The food pantry went from serving 11,000 families in 2019 to 46,000 families in 2020. Additionally, Zakat Chicago

was able to provide all the equipment necessary to keep Sanad running, from buying refrigerators and shelving for supplies to the very utensils used to cook meals. During the holy month of Ramadan, Zakat Chicago supported Sanad by helping create Ramadan boxes. These boxes were filled to the brim with the halal food products that a family would need to prepare a nutritious Ramadan iftar and meals. Your donations to Zakat Chicago allows us to provide the support necessary to keep Sanad’s doors open to Chicagoans.

As the weather grew colder and the pandemic continued to rage, Sanad was no longer able to accept used winter coats for their coat drive. Zakat Chicago, responding to the call heard around the city for coats for the impending winter, procured and donated thousands of new winter coats and other winter necessities to create kits that were distributed at Sanad and other Muslim organizations across Chicago. With temperatures in our city frequently reaching at or below 0 °F overnight, your donation makes a life-or-death difference for people trying to stay safe and warm during these long winter nights.

Sanad, according to the pantry’s manager Aber Aboueid, would not be open if it weren’t for Zakat Chicago’s support. Your donations to ZC make a world of difference in the lives of those who turn to Sanad for help. Your Zakat has a profound and immediate impact on the lives of Chicagoans. Our principle has always been “local collection, local distribution.” We hope you join us in our efforts to maintain that message and help the less fortunate of the Greater Chicago area.

Zakat Chicago grant makes Chi-Care the fastest growing organization in Chicago of its kind

Approximately 77,000 people in Chicago are experiencing homelessness, with almost 30% of those people under the age of 18. The work Chi-Care does for our homeless population is nothing less than essential for our city. Zakat Chicago was the first organization that sponsored Chi-Care in their efforts to provide food and water to Chicago’s homeless population.

When Chi-Care was first created, there was a single SUV delivering food across the city, hand-to-hand. In those early days of their work, they were able to serve between 50-100 people over the course of several weeks. After receiving a grant from Zakat Chicago, created by your donations, Chi-Care now serves 400-500 people a week. Instead of one SUV, there is a fleet of

delivery trucks that take multiple routes to ensure that the most amount of people receive aid. ZC also helped pay for half the food Chi-Care purchased over the course of 6 months with grant money. With the support of Zakat Chicago, Chi-Care has now become the fastest growing organization in the city and has served 15,000 people since their inception, the largest amount of any Chicago-based organization of its kind.

In addition to this expansion of outreach, Chi-Care was able to expand their services to include food, water, snacks, and seasonal supplies (i.e. tents, heaters, blankets, etc.). As a part of ZC’s Winter Kit initiative, Chi-Care received 700 coats to distribute while on their routes. The food, seasonal supplies, and Winter Kits provided by Chi-Care and Zakat Chicago help Chicago’s homeless get through some of the more difficult days. Your donation can ensure the health and safety of Chicago’s most vulnerable people.

In a conversation with Farhan Ahmed, the founder and president of Chi-Care, he called the work of his organization “a walking, talking Dawah.” Chi-Care serves ALL of Chicago’s homeless. In doing so, without ever handing out a Quran or any religious text, Chi-Care spreads the love and knowledge of Islam across the city. When the delivery trucks come down the street, with Chi-Care’s familiar logo plastered on the side, happiness cannot help but become palatable for those about to receive. Hope has arrived once again. Your donation to Zakat Chicago not only feeds bodies, but feeds spirits as well.

Zakat Chicago support makes Mental Health First Aid certification accessible for Chicagoans

The mental health crisis in America is one that needs to be immediately addressed. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2019 there were approximately 51 million adults in the US that had any mental illness, of which approximately 45% received mental health services. Additionally, an estimated 13 million adults had a severe mental illness, with approximately 65% of these individuals receiving mental health services. The recognition of mental illnesses, their signs and symptoms, and its destigmatization is nothing short of essential. The work of American Muslim Health Professionals and their Mental Health First Aid program is vital in helping make this progress happen by teaching people across Chicagoland how to recognize signs of mental illness and how to help those who need access to mental health services.

AMHP, with the support of Zakat Chicago, was able to expand their program across the Chicagoland area, getting more communities and their members involved with mental health education. With a grant provided by ZC, AMHP was able to continue teaching Mental Health First Aid during the pandemic through the creation of online programming. Their workshop, free for all participants who attend, provides everyone with the training necessary to recognize risk factors and warning signs of different mental illnesses. The course, to make it as accessible as possible, assumes no prior knowledge on behalf of the learner and teaches personal and familial self-care practices. At the same time, AMHP has been able to teach these practices while addressing cultural and religious stigmas across communities with nuance and grace. The training provided by American Muslim Health Professionals, made possible by donations from Zakat Chicago, has allowed more people in the Chicagoland area to receive mental health first aid certifications and serve as assets in our larger community by being able to help all people understand and recognize mental illness as something real and important.

The conversation around mental illness is now changing. More and more people everyday are learning what is mental illness and are now slowly destigmatizing talking about it. As this trend slowly but surely continues, programs like Mental Health First Aid by Amercian Muslim Health Professionals become progressively more in demand, a trend that AMHP is already experiencing. Your donations to Zakat Chicago helps make these programs accessible to more people. With your continued support, we can continue to educate and certify Chicagoans on how to recognize the warning signs of different mental illnesses and how to help those in distress.

Zakat Chicago grant gives young asylum-seekers hope at Viator and Bethany House

Approximately more than 33,00 children without any adults came to the U.S border in the fiscal year of 2020, escaping war, famine, and violence. Children under the age of 18, upon arrival at the border, are sent to youth immigration detention centers where they await legal proceedings that will determine whether they will be granted asylum, a process that can take over 4 years. If a child turns 18 while at a youth detention center and has no family in the U.S. to live with, they are transferred to adult detention centers, which, in the Chicago area, are collar county jails. This is where organizations like Viator House and Bethany House show how vital their services are to asylum-seekers. These homes receive notices from either the youth detention center or from the child’s attorney, should they have one, before they turn 18. An

interview is conducted to see if Viator House (if the child is male) or Bethany House (if the child is female) can meet the child’s needs. If so, these homes welcome asylum-seekers, giving food, shelter, education, work opportunities, life skills, therapy, and access to a case manager while they await trial and continue to provide for their families across the world. Zakat Chicago, during the pandemic, when these young people were unable to work, provided a grant that, in part, supported the families of these young men and women overseas and helped the asylum-seekers themselves as they began living independently from the home.

Viator House and Bethany House are more than just places of transition for those who are awaiting their legal proceedings. These houses are actual homes. They teach the young men and women who stay there English and life skills to take care of themselves. They enroll them in high schools and GED programs and even help them attend college. They give them therapy to help deal with the trauma endured from what happened in their home country that necessitated them leaving, walking to the border, and what happened at their detention center. In addition to meeting mental and physical needs, spiritual needs are also met. Viator House and Bethany House work with a number of different religious organizations like local mosques, synagogues, temples, churches, etc. to ensure that everyone who wants to practice their religion can do so freely. Viator House and Bethany House do all this without ever receiving a dollar from the government. These programs actively work to educate others on alternatives to prison while these young men and women await trial.

Your donations to Zakat Chicago make a tangible difference in the lives of these people. They witness the unimaginable in their home countries and escape with the intention to help their families. There are countless stories that fill these homes. The story of a young man sending money back so his sister can stay in school and not be forced into an unwanted marriage. The story of a set of sisters separated by thousands of miles after making it to the border finally being reunited after a year apart. The story of a boy sending money home to his

mother so she can, quite literally, have a roof over her head. The work that Zakat Chicago supports at Viator House and Bethany House demonstrates a different kind of local aid. It improves upon the lives of these men and women by giving them the comfort they need to know their families are supported, even in times where they cannot work. Their sacrifices, their trauma, their efforts were not in vain. They can still provide for those they love. Your donation can provide that comfort.

Zakat Chicago grant covers cost of mental health services for patients at the Khalil Center

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a mental health crisis in our country, with more and more people feeling stressed, isolated, or hopeless. As a result, more people have taken steps to receive mental health services at various clinics and centers across the city. What has emerged from this sharp increase of people experiencing a mental health crisis and receiving treatment is the number of people unable to pay to receive the help they need from a mental health provider. Zakat Chicago, in its continuing battle to help elevate the importance of mental health, recognized this problem and issued a grant to the Khalil Center, a psychological and spiritual wellness center that combines the practice of psychology with Islam.

The Khalil Center serves the underserved of our community and does so through not just talk, but action as well. The Center is dedicated to maintaining a precedent of excellent care for everyone. Unfortunately, the greatest barrier for so many people receiving mental health services is affordability. Zakat Chicago, in recognition of this issue, takes on the bulk of Zakat-eligible patients at the Khalil Center to ensure high-quality care for everyone, regardless of the ability to pay. Serving approximately 5,000 people across Chicagoland, the Khalil Center’s work is essential for the well-being of our community.

Dr. Hooman Keshavarzi, the Founder, Executive Director, and one of 15 practitioners at the Khalil Center, said that “Zakat Chicago meets some of the core needs of the Muslim community.” With the demand for services increasing and the level of activity quadrupling at the Khalil Center, Zakat Chicago’s support has become vital to making sure as many people as possible have access to mental health services. Your donation to Zakat Chicago makes a difference in the lives of Chicagoans reaching out for the help they need.

Zakat Chicago grant quadruples families served at Sanad Food Pantry

Zakat Chicago grant makes Chi-Care the fastest growing organization in Chicago of its kind

Zakat Chicago support makes Mental Health First Aid certification accessible for Chicagoans

Zakat Chicago grant gives young asylum-seekers hope at Viator and Bethany House

Zakat Chicago grant covers cost of mental health services for patients at the Khalil Center

Quick Links

Our Efficiency

Contact Us

follow us