On October 28th, the Muslim Student Associations (MSA) from both Dominion and Herndon High School came together to raise money for Palestine through a bake sale at the Qahwa Cafe located in the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS).(DHS Press’s Assistant Editor Alla Abdellhalim is a member of Dominion’s MSA)The bake sale was hosted during the open mic night reflecting on the current conflict in Palestine, in total, both MSA’s raised $554.50.
According to the Dominion MSA MIST and social media coordinator Hadia Khan, “[The MSAs] are donating through Islamic Relief and this is part of a program called Charity Week.”
How Charity Week works is that groups have a week to raise as much money as they can and “every volunteer and donor has a say in what projects the money raised is spent on,” according to the Charity Week website. “We are planning on allocating all the funds to the Palestine conflict,” Dominion MSA Co-President Hafsah Zaman said.
Zaman said, “We want to tell people that you don’t have to be a big prime minister or president, you can make your own contributions, and it can make a really big difference in raising money and providing help for the Palestinians.”
According to the Charity Week website, “The ultimate vision of Charity Week is to become a vehicle to inspire young people to become active, socially engaged and united upon our shared Islamic and humanitarian values.” This year, Charity Week was from October 23rd to the 29th.
Herndon MSA Vice President Nayeem Patwary said, “[The bake sale] is my way of helping out the Palestinian people, I feel like we should all help in some sort of way.” Patwary added, “Charity Week has always been a thing, but this year we wanted to bring the community together.”
Khan said, “The message behind the fundraiser is [that] everyone should be doing what they can no matter how big or how small… everyone is able to do something to help, it’s just up to them to want to.”
