The Food Pantry at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh

The Food Pantry at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh aims to provide food and other necessities to our diverse community. We strive to apply the Islamic principle of generosity to our Muslim and non-Muslim brothers and sisters who may not have easy access to other pantries in Pittsburgh, and we strive to develop and empower our community.

The Food Pantry at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh has been serving the Pittsburgh area community since 2009. Since its creation, the Food Pantry has given out more than 420,000lbs of food and other necessary items. We are one of the only pantries in the Pittsburgh area that provides halal meat. Salem Halal Market & Grill has graciously donated 38,245lbs of chicken since 2014.

We serve over a hundred families per month and have registered roughly 144 families. Prior to the outbreak of Covid-19 in the U.S., our community members collected their provisions in person. Being that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic in March, we opted for a delivery method to decrease the amount of physical contact. We have partnered with another Pittsburgh organization, 412FoodRescue, to make the deliveries as efficient as possible.

Our food pantry and case management, among other initiatives, fall under social services. Addressing hunger and food insecurity is mentioned explicitly multiple times in our tradition:

"(The righteous are those) who, from their own food, feed the poor, the orphan and the prisoner for the love of God, saying: 'We feed you for the sake of God Alone; we seek from you neither reward nor thanks.'" - Quran, 76:8-9

"Have you seen the one who denies the Recompense? For that is the one who drives away the orphan, And does not encourage the feeding of the poor. So woe to those who pray, [But] who are heedless of their prayer - Those who make a show [of their deeds], And withhold [simple] assistance."
- Quran, 107:1-7

Before Allah (SWT) revealed the major pillars of Salah (prayer), Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), Zakah (donation to those in need), and Sawm (fasting in the month of Ramadan), Allah (SWT) revealed these verses. This shows us that in our tradition, simply performing ritual worship is not enough. We believe that in order to fully practice our faith, we must work to help those around us who are in need.

We strive to build a community that makes us all self-sufficient, but also comfortably interdependent. We believe that poverty alleviation requires a holistic approach, and we do our best to play a part in that.