Immigrant helping to feed families in need

$18K in donations collected for drive-thru food pantry

The idea came to Shafi Ahmed around Thanksgiving. He was struck by how many people he saw struggling to make ends meet and keep their families fed.

So Ahmed, a Pakistani immigrant who lives in Wallingford and works in Windsor, came up with an idea for a drive-through food pantry. But then a question struck him: “How do I do this by myself?” he said. The answer was that he didn’t, and he’s grateful for all the help he’s gotten to go far beyond his original goal of feeding 100 families.

Ahmed reached out to his sister in New York City, who has organized food drives before, to get some pointers. He also contacted Pakistan Tahreek-E-Insaf, also known as PTI, which has a chapter in

Connecticut, for help, as well as friends in the MuslimandSikh communities and others he knows from years of playing cricket.

He established a GoFundMe campaign and began to ask for donations of $30 to fill a box of food that includes rice, flour, cooking oil, sugar, coffee, pasta, peanut butter, cereal and canned vegetables, beans, pasta sauce and tuna fish.

Ahmed said the response enabled him to double the planned number of boxes to hand out to 200, but they kept coming. He has now received $18,000 in donations.

“Now I’m focusing on 500 families,” he said.

But Ahmedstill had some logistical issues to contend with. As he went to stores to find bulk amounts of the items he was told that he couldn’t buy 500 of them at once. So volunteers, were tasked with shopping and filling 30 boxes each. Then he needed a place to organize the items in boxes. The Jaferia mosque in Meriden offered him space. And lastly he needed a place big enough and near a low-income neighborhood to conduct a drive-through pick-up.

Ahmed reached out to The First Cathedral church in Bloomfield, which has a large enough parking lot to accommodate that much traffic and they agreed to host it.

Ahmed said he’ll keep accepting donations on the website if people still want to give and that he will donate the money to churches and mosques to help their own families. He also hopes that people will notice the efforts of the Muslim community in the U.S.

“There is a negative view of the Muslim community out there,” he said. “I’m a first-generation Pakistani immigrant and I love my country.”

As for the drive-through food pantry, it will be held today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1151 Blue Hills Ave.

“There are no questions asked,” Ahmed said. “Just drive through and open the trunk.”