Maryland's Arab American "Corona" Heroes Contribute
By: Mai Abdul Rahman/Arab America Contributing Writer
While COVID-19 is keeping Arab Americans physically apart from each other, it has also brought them somewhat closer together.
Soon after, Gov. Larry Hogan issued a stay-at-home order for Marylanders to stop the spread of the coronavirus; Arab Americans organized virtual weekly meetings to discuss how best to serve their community.
As the number of Marylanders testing positive is growing every day, Arab Americans have sought one another to discuss how best should they engage their community, stay safe and help. They organized and teamed on WhatsApp and by phone to identify the most vulnerable in their communities, who should they target, how to stay safe, discuss how to overcome the challenges of reaching out to non-documented immigrants, offer suggestions and share best practices, and also grieve the loss of friends and relatives.
On April 6, Maryland reported 4,045 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Ninety-one people have died including several members of the Arab American community. While the United States has one of the highest death rates in the world, the state of Maryland is one of the worst affected state in the U.S .
Since mid-March, Arab Americans living in Maryland have organized and volunteered to feed senior citizens, pick and drop meals to hospitals and refugees, make runs to their local pharmacies to pick up prescriptions, drive to their local grocery stores to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables for elderly neighbors, and help families prepare to homeschool their children during the state-wide school closure. Their acts of daily kindness are intended to assure secluded and isolated neighbors that there are many people willing to help them mitigate the pandemic until it subsides.
Montgomery County Arab American Police Officer Sherif Almiggabber is a member of the Muslim Law Enforcement Group in Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Officer Almiggabber delivers food, masks, and hand sanitizers to the doorsteps of seniors within his jurisdiction. With other Arab Americans in different counties, he’s coordinating to fund and provide boxes of nonperishable foods for the needy and those secluded and sheltered who cannot leave their homes.
Mona Nejm of the American Muslim Senior Society managed to organize, fund and launch a dried foods drive within days after the state of emergency. Within a few days, Nejm helped American Muslim Senior Society deliver boxes of rice, lentils, beans, pasta and olive oil to thirty seniors living across Montgomery County.
Members of the Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects (Capital area), presided by Eissa Haj Hamad, are working with locally-owned restaurants to deliver lunch to emergency room staff and hospital nurses at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Howard University Hospital, and Georgetown University Hospital. They are also delivering meals to immigrants and refugees who recently settled in Maryland.
At “Leisure World,” a local retirement community, Sam Shehadeh along with others organized a group of volunteers to pick up and deliver drug prescriptions and grocery shopping to secluded residents.
Moreover, Educator SamiraHussein of Montgomery County is working with 200 parents around the clock, making sure their children have food, insurance, and computers. She is at home answering hundreds of questions and providing resources. For those who don’t have transportation to pick up their food and medicine, Samira Hussein, finds the volunteers to delivers it for them. Meanwhile, some are dedicating their time to work with Meals on Wheels to deliver warm lunches to senior citizens. These meals are distributed to persons living in assisted living housing across Greenbelt, College Park, Hyattsville, and Adelphi.
In the meantime, Arab Americans worked with Maryland’s Governor office to hold and assign the April 10th Maghrib Athan (sunset call for prayer at 7:36 PM) for the remembrance of those lives lost to COVID-19. On that Friday, the Maghrib Athan will be held across Maryland’s Masajids (mosques) to perform a state-wide special Duaa’ (supplication prayer) for the first responders and medical professionals, all of Marylanders and Americans, and for all the people of this precious world.
This communal Athan and prayer requires the participation of only two individuals at each Masjid who will stay 6 feet apart: One will perform the call for the Athan from the Minbar and the Masjid imam will perform the Duaa’ (prayer).
In conclusion, early on, Arab Americans in Maryland recognized the huge need to help isolated and sheltered in place citizens and that the local authorities alone would not be able to respond adequately to the needs of our most vulnerable citizens. They understood that seniors, in particular, would face difficulty in accessing their local grocery stores and pharmacies and their access to food and medicine would depend on the willingness of volunteers to lend a hand. So while the interruption of all contact is acutely felt, Arab Americans of Maryland prepared to be available to help the most susceptible in their communities, and most of all, pray for all those who lost their lives due to COVID-19 Pandemic.
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