Sixth Annual Soup Kitchen hits 15,000 people served since inception

BY: JELANI GRANT 

The TARIC Islamic Centre held its annual soup kitchen and meal delivery service, delivering meals for 3,000 people. The first Sunday of December saw six shelters receive food, achieving a milestone of 15,000 people served in the six years TARIC has been organizing the charity. All of this achieved through volunteer work made up of members of the mosque and surrounding neighbours.

One of the organizers of the soup kitchen and delivery, Imraan Assim accredited this achievement to the more than sixty volunteers they received each week during the program’s deliveries. “It’s really just a lot of good-hearted souls that come together,” Assim said.

“I think people want to do good and want to make stuff like this happen. They just need a couple of people to really step up and do the organizing behind the scenes so when they walk in the food is there laid out on the table so all they have to do is grab a serving spoon, a hairnet, gloves, and start dishing out.”

This year, six shelters were serviced including Bethlehem United Shelter, Ernestine’s Women Shelter, Youth Without Shelter, and Eva’s Satellite. Assim said the ingredients for each nutritious meal are given thorough quality control during the assembly line packaging to guarantee 100% freshness. Meals included rice, noodles, chow mein, baked chicken or jerk chicken with steamed vegetables, and dinner rolls. 

Assim said though most of the deliveries were within a 10-15 minute range of the mosque, the organizing of who would go where made the day run smoothly. During the day’s activities, a point person was appointed for each delivery with turn-by-turn instructions; ensuring services were provided in a timely manner.

During preparation for this year’s service, the organization asked around for other things people in the shelters and surrounding neighbourhoods need, besides delicious meals. “We’ve had volunteers step up, go out and do runs for toiletries and other essential items.”

In addition to the meals, shelters were provided with toiletries, feminine products, hats, gloves, as well as baked goods such as cookies and gourmet cupcakes.

They serve hundreds of meals each week to senior’s homes, low-income complexes and over fifteen emergency/crisis shelters in Toronto for women, men, and youth. TARIC is sure to acknowledge the shelter employees in attendance as well, making sure they get something to eat as well. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mayor John Tory, plus representatives from some of the shelters and senior’s programs, have acknowledged the work done by TARIC.

The program was initiated by several first-generation Canadians born to Guyanese parents who migrated to Toronto in the 1970s. “In year one, after four weeks we completed about 1,200 meals and we were high fiving each other…This past year on week three we did 1,000 meals in that single week,” Assim said.

During the first year of Syrian refugees staying at a hotel near the mosque, the volunteers running their regular soup kitchen program had the idea of serving the 500 people in need of meals on Family Day. “Despite all of our efforts to get them Arab cuisine, they enjoyed the pizza more than anything else,” Assim said.

He told Toronto Caribbean Newspaper the objective of the soup kitchen and meal delivery is to provide charity as a celebration of the Islamic month of Prophet Muhammad. Honouring the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, this is called Rabbi’ al-Awwal, which is marked between the 12^th and 17^th of the third month in the Islamic calendar. “We do this every year as a charitable act to celebrate his birth,” Assim said.

The TARIC Islamic Centre is a mosque established by the Toronto And Region Islamic Congregation (TARIC) and The World Islamic Call Society. They are located on the northeast corner of Highways 400 and 401, the Islamic Centre is one of the largest in the city with a Muslim population of over 400,000. With the help of some of the mosque’s members, this program has served as an extraordinary example of Muslims living with both Canadian and Islamic values through selfless community service.