A recent article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighted how local Muslims and Christians worked together to address homelessness. Several of our community members were interviewed and quoted. Below is a quote from the article:

And for seven or eight years, on Christmas, Virginia Muslim Coalition volunteers pitch in to help feed the church’s guests.

It is a relationship that grew from the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when a group from Bon Air United Methodist, candles and flowers in hand, walked down Buford Road to gather round the nearby Islamic Center of Virginia with a message of support and friendship. It was a relationship enhanced when the center’s imam came and preached soon after, with members of his congregation along to hand out roses to their Methodist neighbors.

“Giving to others is part of all faiths,” said Imad Damaj, a Virginia Commonwealth University pharmacology professor who organizes volunteers from the Muslim coalition. “We all belong to the same community, the Richmond regional community.”