Every year, people of different faiths come together from all over the county to help those in need. The goal is to make over 1,000 hygiene kits and meal bags to distribute to the less fortunate. Last year, the kits and bags were sent to Puerto Rico to aid those affected by natural disasters. This was coordinated through La Posada de Angeles in Añasco, Puerto Rico, and the Angel’s Lodge, an organization that provides resources for locals who need them. This year, the focus was to help the community from within, so the kits and bags were sent to those in Loudoun County that are in need of hygiene products and meals.
This year on November 24th, the food packing took place in the Legacy Elementary gym, and the hygiene kit packing in the cafeteria.
Each year more and more people attend, looking for a way to spread their good fortune. Because of the large amount of volunteers, packing takes less time. This year, the whole event lasted no more than about two hours.
A student from Independence who was in attendance, sophomore Abeera Rafique, explained how she has been volunteering at this event for approximately four years. “I love getting to meet and talk to new people, all while getting to help others. It’s important that we realize that not everyone is able to obtain just simple everyday things that most of us don’t even give a second thought to. It’s a really great and straightforward way to help out. I’ve been doing it for a while and would really love to keep that going.”
Pastor Brookens-Sturnam told the story of how the event came to be. “We [Pastor Brookens-Sturnam and Khaula Rafique, a community leader and avid attendant of the ADAMS Center] met when our daughters were little, and we had this dream in our hearts that our faith communities could work together for a good cause, and we just kept working on it. We’ve just been building on it for the past seven years. This event has really been seven years in the making.”
“Our favorite thing is the diversity. How we’re able to bring everybody together,” said Khaula Rafique. “We started this all at a very small level. There were just a few other people from other religious minorities. But now we’ve got so many people that want to attend and help because it’s unique in its nature. It’s unique because it’s not a regular mosque event, or a Jewish temple event, or a church event.”
The event ended with speeches from representatives of three local religious groups. Pastor Elizabeth Brookens-Sturnam of the Brambleton Presbyterian Church, Rabbi Amy Sapowith of the Beth Chaverim Reform Congregation, and Khaula Rafique of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS Center) spoke as representatives of their respective religious groups. They thanked the numerous volunteers for their dedication, said prayers and gave thanks for their support.
As always the very last thing said by the representatives was an invitation to everyone in attendance to write their hopes and prayers on small pieces of paper anonymously, roll them up and insert them into the “prayer wall”. The prayer wall, as described by Pastor Brookens-Sturman, was made to simulate the Western Wall in Jerusalem. It has been a tradition for visitors of the Western Wall to write their prayers on slips of paper and place them between the cracks of the aged wall. The papers placed in the prayer wall during Family Giving Day go back to Pastor Brookens-Sturman’s office after the event, where she then reads each one personally and prays for the anonymous person.
Though it seems like a very religious event, it is only meant to be an event where people of different religions, or of no religion, come together to do what they can in order to help their community members. As said by Rafique, “Here everybody comes together and it gives people attending or helping out a sense of community. It’s not that they come from a certain faith, it’s that they’re all human beings and they’re serving other human beings.”
This event is meant to be a reminder that when people come together, it is easy to spread the love. The people of Ashburn continue to reach out and help those in need, and in the process, it brings the community together as a single force.
