Kitchen
SERVING HOPE Muslim Soup Kitchen Project gives back to community in more ways than one
TROY, N.Y. » For one Saturday each month, volunteers from the Troy Muslim Soup Kitchen Project cook and serve hot meals to clients in homeless shelters throughout the Capital Region, but that is not all they do.
Volunteers also provide companionship to people in nursing homes and ongoing support to Syrian refugees through this offshoot of a national initiative which came to the area in 2003, when a group of Muslim students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute decided, with the support of the Masjim Al-Hidaya mosque on 15th Street, to give something back to the community.
The mosque is where the project’s volunteer director, Uzma Popal, first learned about the program.
“When my children were small I would see people from the mosque making food and bringing it somewhere. I wanted to be part of it,” she said “When my children got older I decided to volunteer… when this fell into my lap. It felt right.”
That could be, in part, due to her childhood.
“I would always see my mother cooking and feeding others,” she remembered.
Still a volunteer, she became director in 2014. Popal is modest about her role yet publicly credited for bringing the community together,
on little more than a shoestring budget, irrespective of religion. In 2016 the MSKP was recognized by the Catholic Charities of Peace and Justice and the Schenectady mayor’s office for dedication to the community. She maintains that it is not about praise, but helping others. “My religion is the main reason I do this,” Popal said, “Charity is a major thing in Islam. When we visit the sick or do good it’s not for recognition. It’s to serve God… When I worship I can be in a room with 10 people and none are black or white, we are all Muslims.
The monthly soup kitchen, which started with seven volunteers, now has 200 individuals who consistently serve 300 to 500 meals per month to shelters throughout the Capital District. Service sites include Joseph’s House in Troy, the Schenectady City Mission and the South End Children’s Café and Ronald McDonald House in Albany.
“The people we serve have been through a lot,” Popal said. “They need to know we care and understand. … We fill stomachs, but more than that, people need our smiles.”
The soup kitchen is the project’s most visible effort, but it is part of something bigger, a multi-faceted plan to support the greater community. The organization’s annual Ramadan Hunger Appeal raised $1,444 for the Northeastern Regional Food Bank. Every month, a group of volunteers take part in “Visits to the Sick,” where people visit individual homes and assisted living facilities. Bi-monthly community drives also collect toiletries, school supplies and winter coats for Syrian refugees.
Program efforts are not limited by faith or religion, Popal said. The organization receives help from a long, diverse list of partnering organizations that includes local schools, colleges, mosques, churches and businesses. For example, the meat donation project could not happen without the support of Halal Market in Latham, she said.
“We learned that protein sources were extremely limited, so we were able to put a freezer in this local business so when people come in to buy meat, they can donate meat, as well,” she said.
Support of such groups as Halal Market is especially critical as the organization faces struggles similar to those of other community service orgrnizations, but Popal is hopeful that the project
will be able to not only continue its important work, but continue to grow and expand.
“I would like to see our programs grow,” Popal said. “Like most nonprofits, our challenge is funding.
Nothing is free. If we don’t have the funds, then ideas are just ideas. There is more need then we can provide [for], and the more we have, the more we can help. The one thing we can’t do is give up.”