NEW YORK – Painting benches, gardening, trash cleanup, farm games, and arts and crafts projects are just some of the activities volunteers participated in during Donate A Day 2008 in New York City on April 14, held by The Islamic Center Khairat Committee at New York University and World Faith.
This interfaith event included several simultaneous community service projects all over the city, including Manhattan, Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx.
About 65 people signed up for the day-long event, said Halima Samad, head of community service for the Khairat committee.
"You don’t need money to do good," Samad said. "Just give one day to people who need it."
Participating organizations included NY Cares, a group of people who cleaned parks, schools and gardens throughout the city.
Volunteer Maryum Khwaja, who was assigned to clean a park in the Bronx, said even though she got so muddy she had to throw out her shoes, she found it was well worth it.
"The experience was so humbling," she said. "You tend to forget how needy people really are."
Khawaja, who is a social worker, said an event like Donate a Day changes people’s outlooks on life.
Project Sunshine provided arts and crafts projects to hospitalized children, and The Council on the Environment of NYC-GreenMarket participated by providing cooking and compost demos and by helping support local farmers at open markets.
Another organization, Women in Need, offered crafts like creating animals using clothes pins to be given to homeless and disadvantaged children.
The organization also renovated shelters.
Harlem Dowling, a foster care facility that provides health/family services to children from Harlem, volunteered by taking 8 to 14-year-old children on a trip to the Harlem Hip Hop Cultural Center.
There, the children were presented with information crucial to a young person’s successful transition into adolescence and adulthood.
Topics offered included economic literacy, career, health, family information and handling peer pressure.
Volunteer Robert Gargano, who is not Muslim, said he was happy to see boundaries broken down between the different faiths.
"To take part in an event that shares with everyone that kids are kids and time and health are precious to all was a breath of fresh air," he said.
Samad said the center plans to make Donate A Day an annual event.
"It was successful," she said. "But next time, we hope to reach out to more non-Muslims."
Co-sponsors of the event included the Office of Graduate Student Life at the Student Resource Center, The United Muslim Association, World Faith, The Islamic Center at NYU Alumni Association and The Catholic Center at NYU.
On the Web: www.worldfaith.org/dad.html
