From The Baltimore Sun
By Lorraine Mirabella
The Baltimore Sun
When Malika MacDonald watched from afar the devastation caused by unrest in Baltimore’s long-struggling neighborhoods, the Boston-based worker with Muslim charity ICNA Relief USA felt compelled to help. Staff and volunteers with the group, which helps disaster victims, came to the city earlier this month and distributed food and hygiene goods to elderly residents living on riot-torn blocks.
On Saturday, MacDonald returned to the city, this time for the annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America, (ICNA) as an attendee and speaker, but also to continue the charity’s work in the city. The annual convention’s theme this year — to dispel growing misperceptions about Islam and the Prophet Muhammad — dovetailed with her own work with one of the nation’s largest domestic charities, MacDonald said.
“I don’t feel comfortable in my life when I know others are suffering,” MacDonald said, as she bustled around a convention center room stacked with more food and supplies that were to be distributed Sunday to Baltimore’s homeless.
Volunteers from the 20,000-attendee convention handed out about 400 “blessing bags” with dental kits, juice, oranges, water, cereal bars, soup, and food donated by Whole Foods around Madison Street and the Fallsway.
MacDonald told a story of a homeless family the group met while handing out the bags. A 4-year-old girl opened hers and let out a squeal of excitement.
She’d never had her own toothbrush.
“It was eye-opening to some of the severe poverty that exists here,” MacDonald said.
The relief group, a division of ICNA, worked on the initiative in conjunction with the Muslim Social Services Agency of Baltimore, or MSSA, a social services organization that focuses on urban areas.
“We do this because we are Muslim,” said Karim Amin, MSSA’s president. “I’m hoping doing these services will dispel myths.”
