Religious group donates to Berkeley Food Pantry

The Berkeley Middle of the Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi, or M.T.O., Shahmaghsoudi University of Islamic Sufism donated provides to the Berkeley Meals Pantry on Monday in celebration of Eid al-Fitr, an Islamic holiday marking the close of Ramadan.

The donation consisted of 1200 lbs of nonperishable food and 250 grownup-sized and 50 little ones-sized volunteer-built masks, in accordance to M.T.O. Berkeley spokesperson Mana Nazeri. She extra the donation is supposed to benefit low-revenue family members, senior citizens and UC Berkeley college students.

“Because individuals are however struggling from the results of the pandemic, this donation will provide much required reduction to the recipients,” Nazeri mentioned in an email. “We hope our endeavours motivate many others to appear together and enable those people who are in require.”

10 volunteers from M.T.O. Berkeley helped manage the event at the Berkeley Foodstuff Pantry, in accordance to Nazeri. In addition to organizers, Berkeley Metropolis Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani and Berkeley Meals Pantry team and volunteers, who assisted distribute the food, have been existing at the occasion, in accordance to Dharma Galang, director of the pantry.

Galang pointed out the huge donation would go a “long way” to feeding families. She echoed Nazeri’s worries more than the continuing impact of COVID-19, noting the donation’s significant timing in the course of a interval of high food stuff and vitality fees thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Berkeley and Albany households who have been presently battling just before the pandemic are now working with the pressures,” Galang stated in an e mail. “We have to perform collectively to make guaranteed that all our neighbors have sufficient food stuff, fundamental housing, and obtain to assets in order to be balanced and secure.”

This party was not the to start with time M.T.O. Berkeley has offered the Berkeley Foods Pantry with donations targeted at easing everyday living in a pandemic, Galang pointed out, introducing that she hoped the two companies could carry on to operate together into the upcoming.

All through the pandemic, M.T.O. Berkeley has donated 8,502 parts of individual protecting equipment and 22,256 other merchandise, such as food items, to 73 amenities, in accordance to Nazeri. The complete M.T.O. — which describes itself as an worldwide nonprofit — has donated 120,000 tons of food throughout the pandemic, Nazeri mentioned. 

In accordance to Nazeri, this streak of donations is primarily based in the Islamic religion of the faculty, which promises its teachings on “self-knowledge” date back again to and had been authorized by the religion’s founder. Guided by Islamic tenets, M.T.O. is energetic in charity, disaster reduction and other assistance things to do, Nazeri added.

“Khedmat, or Company centered on really like, is one particular of the most important concepts of Islam,” Nazeri stated in an email. “As college students and volunteers of M.T.O. we think about it our accountability to carry out charity and provider to our local community.”

Gabe Classon is a educational facilities and communities reporter. Get in touch with him at [email protected], and adhere to him on Twitter at @gabeclasson.