President John F. Kennedy once said, "Never before has man had such a great capacity to control his own environment, to end hunger, poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and human misery. We have the power to make the best generation of mankind in the history of the world."

     We are blessed in this community and at the Mosque Foundation by a great group of volunteers: men and women, young and old, professional and retired, who give our community and our Mosque a unique and distinctive mark. For example, on any given Friday at our Mosque-rain or shine, freezing cold or sweltering hot-you will see a dedicated group of volunteers from the Traffic Committee who safely guide worshippers to park their cars in an organized fashion. Imagine the chaos without their help.

Every other week, a busy physician leaves his clinic and comes to the Mosque with his wife, and together they pack the Mosque pickup truck with food and other needed products and drive them to the Food pantry without special notice or fanfare. Their only hope is to receive reward from Allah the Exalted. There contribution brings warmth to their hearst and relief to families who are hungry and in need of basic living supplies.

Every Sunday after Fajr prayer, a group of sincere individuals spend hours selflessly reviewing the applications for Zakat (Charity) to ensure that the money is distributed according to the fair rules of distribution.

Every Monday morning, a group of sisters devote their time distributing food, and fresh fruits and vegetables to more than 100 families at the Mosque Foundation Community Food Pantry. They, too, are unconcerned with any credit for themselves. They are motivated to serve others and their community. In fact, they relieve the entire community of the obligation to serve the needy.

For more than twenty years, we have had some sisters who prepare homemade sandwiches and sell them to Mosque worshippers every Friday. They rightfully believe that a small but persistent good deed is better than big one which is interrupted or inconsistent. This ethic is praised by God's final Prophet (PBUH).

The Information Technology Committee is formed by a few members who have busy full-time jobs in corporate America. They somehow spend hundreds of volunteer hours to plan and provide oversight to the new website and the newsletter, as well as study and make recommendations for the IT requirements of the Mosque expansion project. Their effort is priceless, though most of the community may never know the great work they have done.

More than twenty volunteer committees spend hundreds of hours meeting, planning, training, and working to provide educational and social services, maintain the Mosque, organize events, engage in Interfaith dialogue, meet with public officials and media representatives, lead the community to political empowerment, organize rallies, and help govern the affairs of the community.

The Mosque volunteers are an important part of the fabric of our community, but it is useful to look at the bigger picture of volunteerism in America in general. It has been estimated that 61.2 million Americans volunteered time in 2006, or the equivalent of 9 million full-time workers. About 44% of all adults volunteer in their communities, schools, churches, youth centers, park districts, or their preferred non-profit organizations. In 2006, the estimated dollar value of volunteer time was $18.77 per hour. More than 239 billion dollars were saved by volunteering.

     How many tens of thousands of dollars does our community save because of the selfless work of our devoted volunteers? It is a challenge to calculate, but what we do know is that our community and its needs are expanding fast. The number of volunteers has not kept up with the demand for services.

For different reasons, Muslims are not volunteering in a way that our faith and community calls for. A small number of life long volunteers, women and men, are carrying a very heavy load for the rest of those who do not volunteer. Many Muslims are not used to give commitments that take away from their family time or social life.

Most Muslim retirees and senior citizens do not volunteer compared to more than 65% of their fellow Americans of similar age. There is also a perception in our community that our youth are accustomed to receiving but not giving to their community.

We can do better and volunteer more as individuals and as a community. We can do this by teaching our children to volunteer, and by being role models for them, spreading the good work among our friends and neighbors, volunteering to all causes not only Islamic ones, institutionalizing volunteerism in our schools, Mosques and organizations, and recognizing our volunteers for the great work they are doing.

In Islam, volunteering is an important element of faith (iman); it is praised and rewarded. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said "Faith has more than seventy virtues, the highest of which is the declaration of faith and the lowest is removing harm from the way." The volunteer work of many brothers and sisters in our community are among the high virtues of faith. They do their work silently, patiently, and for the sake of God.

Dr. M. Zaher Sahloul