ARLINGTON, VA — Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, predicted this would happen as millions of Americans lost their jobs, their paychecks and even their businesses because of the coronavirus pandemic: Hunger is an urgent problem for about 19,000 people in Arlington.

You can help. Patch and Feeding America teamed last summer to address the growing hunger crisis in America, connecting readers with the organization’s 200 member food banks that serve 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, and providing an easy way to donate money to help their neighbors.

Now through Dec. 31, we’re encouraging readers to make a tax-deductible contribution to Feeding America in the Patch Holiday Food Drive. Every $1 given to the organization buys 10 meals.

Local resources include:

• Food Pantry by Our Lady Queen of Peace, 2700 19th Street South, Arlington, VA 22204;
• Food for Others – Neighborhood Food Distribution Sites by Food For Others, Inc., South Dickerson Street, Arlington, VA 22204; 703-207-9173
• Emergency Food Pantry by The Salvation Army Arlington Corps, 518 South Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22204
• Emergency Food, Food Pantry by Community Church of God, 790 South Carlin Springs Road, Falls Church, VA 22204; 703-671-6726
• Mobile Food Pantry by ICNA Relief – Virginia, 2116 South Nelson Street, Arlington, VA 22204; 917-943-8361
• Food Pantry by St. Georges Episcopal Church, 915 North Oakland Street, Arlington, VA 22203
• Emergency Assistance (EMAST) by Salvation Army National Capital Area Command, 518 South Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22204; 703-979-3380
• Food Pantry by Catholic Charities Diocese of Arlington, 703-841-3830
• Community Assistance by Mount Olivet United Methodist Church, 1500 North Glebe Road, Arlington, VA 22207; 703-527-3934
• Food Pantry by Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC), 2708 S Nelson St., Arlington, VA 22206; 703-845-8486

Feeding America predicted last summer that 50 million people, including 17 million children, could face hunger by year’s end because of the pandemic. Feeding America projects the food insecurity rate in Arlington will rise to 8.4 percent in 2020, up from 5.4 percent in 2018.

Feeding America says that 80 percent of its food banks — or 4 in 5 — are serving more people than they were at the same time last year. With the pandemic worsening during the holiday season, many people who never before worried about how they’d pay for a holiday meal are turning to food banks for the first time.

From the beginning of the pandemic in March, Feeding America distributed 4.2 million meals — enough to provide every U.S. resident with breakfast, lunch and dinner for just over four days.

In the first four months of the pandemic, 4 in 10 people were first-time visitors to food banks, according to Feeding America.

How To Support The Patch Holiday Food Drive

Patch has teamed with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2020, more than 50 million Americans will not have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.Article Courtesy voiceofoc.com

The U.S. Constitution says every person has the right to exercise their religion, even prison inmates. Opportunities for religious assemblies and services are offered in U.S. prisons. One detention facility in Arlington County, Virginia, is working with the Islamic Circle of North America to provide Muslim prisoners a way to gather for Friday prayers and other religious activities. VOA’s Nilofar Mughal visited the facility and has this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
For more information:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/icnacsj
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/icnacsj
Website: http://www.icnacsj.org/mpsp
Donate at http://www.icnacsj.org/SupportMP/
Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/islamic-program-in-virginia-lifts-up-prison-inmates/4874958.html

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In order to bring more awareness around the issue of foster parenting under our Family Breakdown focus area, ICNA Council for Social Justice invited a foster recruiter from the Farifax County government office in Virginia to talk about it. There are many kids who need homes to be taken care of! In this video we discuss differences between foster and adoption as well as other FAQs about becoming foster parents.
Please listen and share!

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HYBLA VALLEY, VA — When you look around your community, it’s easy to see the effects the coronavirus has had on our way of life. What’s less visible is the number of people who are now worrying about having enough to eat.

Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, says coronavirus-related economic crises could push the number of food insecure Americans to 54 million by year’s end.
That’s 17 million more Americans than who were food insecure before the pandemic. For some, it’s a matter of running short on grocery money before the week is out and eating a lot of boxed pasta and rice dishes.
For others, food insecurity means real hunger.
In Fairfax County, about 61,710 were considered food insecure before the pandemic, according to Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap” interactive study.
Job loss and other economic crises associated with the coronavirus could push the rate of food insecurity in Fairfax County to 10.5 percent by the end of the year.
Feeding America, whose 200 member food banks include the Capitol Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., reports both higher demand for services and more need for volunteer and donor support.
Some of food pantries and other services available in the Route 1 corridor of Fairfax County are:

• Food pantry by United Community Ministries, Inc., 7511 Fordson Road, Alexandria, VA 22306
• SHARE Food Network of Virginia by Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Washington, 7511 Fordson Road, Alexandria, VA 22306
• Food pantry and mobile food pantry by ICNA Relief – Virginia, 2913 Woodlawn Trail, Alexandria, VA 22306
• Food pantry by Woodlawn United Methodist Church, 7730 Fordson Road, Alexandria, VA 22306
• Food pantry by Bethlehem Baptist Church, 7836 Fordson Rd, Alexandria, VA 22306
• Groveton’s Food Pantry by Groveton Baptist Church, 6511 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, VA 22306
• FAME Food Pantry by First A.M.E Church of Alexandria, 8653 Richmond Highway, Alexandria, VA 22309
• Emergency food and food pantry by Church of Christ at Mt. Vernon, 8607 Jeff Todd Way, Alexandria, VA 22309

Article Courtesy: news.yahoo.com

By Khurram Shahzad
While getting gas in a rest area at New Jersey Turnpike, I asked the guy, Shahzaib Malik, who was filling up my car tank, aren’t you scared of Coronavirus? Of course, I am but I can’t stay home so I am here and working, Shahzaib replied sadly.

What if you get the virus, I asked him promptly? I don’t know, I don’t have medical insurance, I usually get cold and get the flu when the weather changes, maybe I will die home thinking it is a common flu, he answered while scratching his foot on the ground.
As the coronavirus is rapidly expanding across America, there is a growing concern that low-income residents, people in poverty and undocumented residents may suffer disproportionately – directly, by getting sick, and indirectly, through disruptions to their work lives. In America, there are more than 13 million undocumented residents and, among them, more than 60% are living without any health coverages. Similarly, 23% of legal immigrants do not have any medical coverage, according to a 2019 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Today, if you walk into any medical facility and you don’t have medical insurance, you must pay the minimum cost which is $1300 to get tested for Coronavirus.
Most of the low-wage jobs in retail and service industries do not provide sick paid leave. The rigid workplace environments that prevent immigrants from reporting their illnesses. For those living paycheck to paycheck, it’s difficult to voluntarily take time off when a week’s wages could make a difference in their ability to pay rent.
They often live doubled and tripled up in unstable households where people frequently move in and out. They must rely on public transportation, which can hasten exposure or spread infection, health and poverty experts say.
Further, as schools are closed and the source of free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch is cut off, the costs and stress to parents and children increase. If shuttered schools conduct online classes, many low-income students will be left out because they have no computers. One of the parents must take time off from work to be home with the kid which means more financial difficulties.
I visited a homeless shelter in Herndon, Virginia to get first-hand information about prevention exercises and I was shocked that “freehand sanitizer spray puff” was the only prevention method they were using. A staff member told me that they had been talking to those gathered at the service center about how to avoid exposure to coronavirus and had emphasized washing hands. It is the best we can do with limited resources, said the staff.
On Feb 24, President Trump passed a bill about immigration which makes it harder for immigrants to obtain a green card if they’ve sought government help – which includes any form of government health care. Since then, people had been dropping out of Medicaid as the Covid-19 cases began to surface in early March.
Moreover, as we have seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has speedup its operations in recent years which has created an atmosphere of fear, undocumented immigrants are hesitant to go to any health care facilities in fear of being reported, even though community clinics are safe places that do not ask for citizenship status.
As a society, we have accepted and have no issues that there are so many in our community who are uninsured, underinsured, undocumented and unable to take sick leave
New York, Washington, and California have waived this cost using the state’s special funding. For US citizens and permanent residents, any tests performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are free. Medicaid and Medicare will cover testing costs.
For low-income families, especially the immigrants, prevention and testing of Covid-19 isn’t something they can take for granted. In California, for example, where the government is participating in treatment, it will cost up to $200 for uninsured patients to get tested for the Coronavirus, which means they wouldn’t be able to buy groceries, pay phone bills, etc. for the next two weeks.
Over time, Immigrant communities have set up their own workarounds for such situations. Muslim Community Center (MCC) clinic in Maryland is providing 100% free medical services without asking the patient’s citizenship status. Similarly, the Jewish community has its free medical facilities in Brooklyn, New York. But the fact of the matter is, there’s only so much these clinics can do, however, without further support at the federal level.
After President Trump declared a national emergency, I reached out to the Embassy of Pakistan to inquire about actions the embassy has taken to safeguard the lives of Pakistani students, visitors and others living with different resident statuses. I was given few tweets of the Ambassador AsadMajeed Khan which were primarily about embassy visa services during this outbreak, some canceled events/meetings and precautions that could be used including the use of online services. There was nothing mentioned about communication or coordination with the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) who is very active when it comes to a crisis like this. Maybe the embassy is not required to do so.
“Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) is one of the biggest Muslim charity and disaster response organizations. We have been releasing awareness videos, distributing hand sanitizers and related kits free of costs”, said ICNA’s director information and outreach Moviz Siddique.
In my opinion, as a society, we have accepted and have no issues that there are so many in our community who are uninsured, underinsured, undocumented and unable to take sick leave. We are also okay with the fact that these families and individuals without access to any healthcare are going to get sicker, are going to spread the disease more frequently because they’re not getting care or isolating or getting diagnosed and treated. As we are witnessing its sweep across nations, the coronavirus is exposing flaws in our “civilized society’s system”. If the freedom of information is a problem in China, then inequalities and the massive disparities in the way people are treated depending on their economic circumstances and their immigration status is the reality of America. The coronavirus, of course, does not discriminate on those grounds and having large sections of society being unable to see a doctor is suddenly in focus as not just being bad for the individuals themselves, but for the country a whole.
The writer is a technology expert who is working with US government based in Washington DC
Article Courtesy: Dailytimes.com.pk

By Gabrielle Harmon, October 28, 2019
 
CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — Volunteers with the Muslim Community Center of Chesterfield and ICNA Relief partnered to host a free clinic Sunday for people in need of healthcare.


“Within this community, especially in this area, there is a big need for basic services,” said Dr. Sidra Butt, an associate dentist at Spencer Dental.
The Muslim Community Center of Chesterfield and ICNA Relief partnered together to connect with people in areas in need of healthcare.
Kaiynat Amir, a daughter of one of the organizers, said the goal of the community health clinics is to connect with “underserved” areas.
“We’re trying to reach more of a population where if insurance is an issue, they get information about that,” Amir said. “Or if it’s an issue in terms of not being able to get to those physicians, they can have more access.”
The General Assembly voted in 2018 to expand the requirements of Medicaid, which gave more than 300,000 Virginians the opportunity to be insured at the start of 2019.
However, for many who do not meet the new extended poverty level were uncertain about what to do next.
“I do have plenty of cases where I come across people who literally are just like $100, $200 from not making the threshold. And that’s a sad situation, because those people are really in dire need of having proper full coverage,” United Healthcare agent Anjum Ali said.
Which is why Amir believes free health clinics like the one on Sunday are critical.
“They’re learning that there are so many more opportunities for them to get the care that they need,” Amir explained. “And they don’t have to fully rely on just going to the hospital when they get really ill or putting things off to where you can’t do anything or your in a position to where it’s tough to get better.”
Click here for more information on upcoming clinics and events held by the Muslim Community Center of Chesterfield in partnership with ICNA Relief.
Article Courtesy: CBS 6 News Channel

By Maryam Saleh, The Intercept, May 25 2019
 
FOR THE LAST three weeks, Muslims around the world have been observing the month of Ramadan by fasting from food and drink from dawn to sunset — a period of about 16 to 18 hours in the United States.

The six to eight non-fasting hours, then, are an important time to recharge and rehydrate. Yet in at least two Virginia state prisons, according to civil rights groups, Muslims are being denied basic rights, despite constitutional protections and federal laws around religious freedom.
In one Virginia prison, Muslims known to be fasting are not being served breakfast before sunrise, while at another prison, Muslims are being forced to wait at least an hour or more after sunset to receive their dinners, according to a previously unreported letter sent to the Virginia Department of Corrections on Friday by Muslim Advocates, the Islamic Circle of North America’s Council for Social Justice, and the Virginia Prison Justice Network.
“Incarcerated Muslims have a critical right to religious liberty in prisons. Yet, Ramadan after Ramadan, we see prisons across the country needlessly deprive fasting inmates of adequate food and water, which not only disrupts the holiness of the month, but pressures Muslim inmates to choose between their Ramadan fast and their health,” said Nimra Azmi, a staff attorney at Muslim Advocates. “VDOC should act immediately to safeguard the free exercise rights of its Muslim inmates and allow them to observe Ramadan fully and freely.”
In addition to not being fed on time, incarcerated Muslims around the country also face obstacles when trying to congregate for Friday prayers and in getting their hands on copies of the Quran, said Rameez Abid, the outreach director at the ICNA Council for Social Justice, which runs a Muslim Prisoner Support Project. Earlier this year, in fact, Muslim Advocates sued a Florida county jail and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for such hurdles like lack of access to Qurans and an inability to pray as needed.
The Friday letter singles out the Red Onion State Prison in Pound, Virginia, and the River North Correctional Center in Independence, Virginia, but the groups say they believe such conditions are persistent throughout the Virginia prison system.
“We believe that Red Onion and River North are not the only facilities to be impacted by Ramadan-related issues,” the letter’s authors wrote, “and that this is reflective of a broader problem at VDOC facilities.”
The Virginia Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.
While it’s difficult to gauge the size of faith groups within overall prison populations, a 2012 Pew Research Center survey of prison chaplains found that Muslims make up 9 percent of the population in the prisons where those chaplains worked.
Muslims are also more likely to face arbitrary limitations on their religious practice, according to ICNA’s Muslim Prisoners Support Project, which launched in 2018 to support detained Muslims by offering prayer services, Islamic education, and other religious resources. From 1997 to 2008, Muslims in federal prison filed the greatest number of requests for administrative remedies regarding religious observance, according to a 2008 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and Religious Freedom.
With approximately 10 days until Ramadan ends, the three organizations are demanding that Muslims observing Ramadan at Virginia Department of Corrections facilities be served their meals in a timely manner and that they be given access to clean water throughout the night. The groups also called on the department to train its staff on Ramadan practices and increase oversight over meal delivery systems for the remainder of this Ramadan and in the future.
At Red Onion, prison staff have “repeatedly and purposefully failed to serve breakfast before sunrise to inmates known to be fasting,” the letter reads. As a result, detained Muslims are pressured to choose between eating that day or going without food or drink until the evening.
At River North, meanwhile, detained Muslims have been forced to wait an hour or more after sundown before receiving their dinners, extending an already 16-hourlong fast. River North staff have also denied fasting Muslims access to enough potable water after fasting hours, whereas the general population at both prisons “receive their food on time, are able to eat meals, and have access to drinkable water throughout the day,” according to the letter.
These conditions, the groups allege, violate the U.S. Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, or RLUIPA, a federal statute that bars prisons from substantially burdening a prisoner’s ability to worship. Under the First Amendment’s free exercise of religion clause, as well as RLUIPA, the government must provide a compelling reason for burdening a detained person’s religious observance.
The prisons’ actions “clearly run afoul of the protections enshrined in both RLUIPA and the First Amendment,” the letter reads. The department’s facilities also violate “RLUIPA and the Fourteenth Amendment by treating Muslim inmates on less than equal terms with other inmates and forcing them to go without meals, adequate clean water, and timely served meals — which are not denied to non-Muslim inmates.” The conditions also violate the Eighth Amendment, because “denying fasting inmates more than a cup or two of drinkable water a day falls far short” of obligations for humane conditions in prison.
Ultimately, said Abid, “these are various ways of aggression toward the Muslim community.”
Article Courtesy: The Intercept