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Helping out, ‘HalfDate’ at a time |
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By SHAHLA KHAN, Contributing Writer
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LOS ANGELES - By an almost effortless click of a mouse from Texas to Canada, a southland Islamic school finally reached its goal of collecting much needed funds to pay off student textbooks. Donations began pouring in, all through a simple website called HalfDate.com.
The inspiration for HalfDate comes from the teaching of Prophet Muhammad, (PBUH) in which he advised that any contribution, even as small as half a date, is valuable.
“Save yourself from the (Hell) Fire even with half a date (to be given in charity)” (Al-Bukhari).
Each month, HalfDate features what it calls a “Date Drive.” The website presents a specific cause with a specific goal or money amount needed to be achieved by a certain due date. According to the founders, who request to remain anonymous, “HalfDate is about a collective effort for a cause. It’s not only about monetary donation drives, because in Islam, the concept of Sadaqa (charity) is much broader than that.”
When Eric Ali, principal of Al-Madinah Islamic School, was approached about the idea to raise money online to pay for his school’s textbooks, he accepted the opportunity with much enthusiasm.
“It was such an excellent idea, and we were all so surprised by the overwhelming response and donations,” said Ali. “Our school has been suffering financially, and when you don’t have proper resources for your students, they suffer as well.”
Previously, the school’s founders had collected funds by traveling to other countries. However, the attacks of 9/11 reduced the amount of aid they were receiving.
HalfDate set up a Paypal account for Al-Madinah through which donors could contribute to the cause online. HalfDate encouraged its contributors to help in any way, including influence, word of mouth, expertise, and volunteerism.
Donors can also post comments on the site in hopes of influencing other potential donors towards the act of charity. One supporter stated, “Alhamdulillah I’m a student and I’m broke, but I still managed to donate. Many times we hesitate to donate even a couple of bucks, but don’t mind getting our twice-a-day $3 fix at Starbucks.”
The first PayPal donation came from New Jersey on the afternoon of Feb. 25, 2008. The smallest donation was $2 and the largest was $555, both of which were received from Canada. Through HalfDate alone, they were able to raise more than $9,000, more than half of which helped pay off textbooks.
Teachers like Hala Tweini, who has taught Arabic and Qur’an at the school for 20 years, hope that HalfDate continues such drives in the future.
“It was amazing how fast it all occurred,” she said. “So many people from different parts of the world united and helped for the sake of these children. We would like to see more efforts like this from the community, especially because it teaches the children how easy it is to work together toward a common goal.”
Al-Madinah School was founded in 1979 and is one of the oldest Islamic schools in California. It functions by subsidizing its tuition as most of the children are from working families. It serves 75 children in grade levels kindergarten through ninth grade.
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