The Zakat Foundation of America

(Bridgeview, IL 8/17/2010) This year, Ramadan fell right in the heart of back-to-school season, and as children in the Chicagoland area prepared to start another school year, Zakat Foundation is holding its 8th Annual Backpack Distribution program. Partnering with local police departments, mosques, Project Downtown and the Circuit Court of Cook County, Zakat Foundation will be handing out about 600 backpacks filled with school supplies to needy elementary school students in and around Chicago.

Zakat Foundation has given away backpacks to needy school children through the Juvenile Justice & Child Protection Department and Adult Probation Department of the Circuit Court of Cook County to date. On Saturday, August 21, Zakat Foundation will distribute backpacks at the Markham Park District on 16053 Richmond Avenue at 1 PM. Zakat Foundation will also give out more backpacks this back-to-school season with the cooperation of the Light of Islam mosque, Masjid Dawah and Project Downtown.

“It is a privilege for Zakat Foundation to be able to provide school supplies and backpacks to so many children. Their excitement at having ‘new’ things for school is evident in their smiling faces”, says Social Service Director, Sheryl Bilal. Through Zakat Foundation’s Backpack Program, generous donors have contributed tens of thousands of backpacks to poor schoolchildren worldwide. The program continues to expand in the United States, as more families struggle with basic necessities, leaving little room in their budget for school supplies. Started in 2001 under the slogan “To Kids, From Kids, With Love,” it promotes hands-on humanitarian work for all ages. Children are encouraged to donate backpacks that they have personally filled with school supplies which are then sent overseas.

The Backpack Program is just one of Zakat Foundation’s education initiatives in the United States and abroad. Zakat Foundation believes that education is a human right through which communities become equipped to better their social and economic conditions.

Zakat Foundation of America is a Chicago based non-profit relief and development organization which has catered to local and regional needs, as well as abroad to Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, since 2001. For more information and photos of our relief work, please contact us, call 708.233.0555, or visit www.zakat.org.