DEARBORN – Michigan Muslims are taking part in a national food drive campaign entitled “Feed Their Legacy”, created to honor victims of the Feb. 10 Chapel Hill, North Carolina shootings.  

The victims, Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha, were shot execution-style at their home and their neighbor, a 46-year-old White man named Craig Hicks, was arrested on three counts of first degree murder. The Muslim community was emotionally torn by the murders. Family members of the victims have asked authorities to investigate the murders as hate crimes. 

The “Feed Their Legacy” campaign asks American Muslims to respond to hate with kindness. It has gone viral, resulting in 90,000 meals through 275 food drives in 33 states. 

In Michigan, the charitable organization Zaman International and the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) coordinated a canned food drive that included participants from around the state.  

Michigan’s Muslim community collected more 4,000 cans in two weeks for Zaman International’s food bank. According to Sumaiya Ahmed, the communication director for the MMCC, the cans were last counted on March 31 and the figure has increased since then. 

“Now we probably have an additional 600 food cans or more,” Ahmed said. 

The Muslim community set up nine drop-off locations for canned food. On Monday, April 13, the community gathered in Dearborn for a “Community Can Count”, where they counted, sorted and packed thousands of cans before delivering them to Zaman International. 

Monica Boomer, the director of community engagement at Zaman International, said the organization serves about 250 needy families in southeast Michigan, including marginalized women and children. 

She also said most of the food that has been collected will be distributed to families in June during Ramadan. 

Deah’s last Facebook post, a picture of him feeding the homeless in Durham, inspired the charity food drive. 

“One month later, while we still grieve the sudden loss of our family, the silver lining in this tragedy is a response like Feed Their Legacy,” said Yousef Abu-Salha, brother of Yusor and Razan. “It comforts us tremendously to see that a photo of Deah feeding 75 people has inspired a movement that will feed more than 75,000.” 

Fatima Salman, a member of the MMCC’s advisory council, said that right after the shooting a group of 70 representatives from national organizations got together to discuss what they could do to honor the victims’ legacy. 

“We don’t want to fight hate with hate,” Salman said. “We want to honor their legacy; and because Deah’s last Facebook post featured him feeding the homeless, a charity food drive was the best way. Within two or three days of the campaign being launched it became a national initiative.” 

To date, 286 mosques and student groups in 33 states have registered to conduct canned food drives for local food pantries; three weeks after the launch of the FeedTheirLegacy.com website, which tracks state-by-state can collections in real-time, food drives nationwide reported 85,000 cans collected.

All cans and money donated nationwide are equivalent to at least 95,000 meals, enough to feed the entire homeless population of North Carolina eight times over.

While the victims’ families want the authorities to investigate the murders as hate crimes, they’ve urged all American Muslims to respond to hate with love and to focus on their legacies of community service rather than on their brutal murders. 

To raise awareness of the charity drive in Michigan, the MMCC used social media and sent email blasts out to more than 15,000 people in the state. 

 “It is not only people in metro-Detroit who participated,” Ahmed said. “We had people from all around Michigan. It wasn’t only about how many cans they collected, but getting together and doing something.”

American Muslim groups came together in a historically unprecedented way following the tragedy. 

“Their murders were such horrific acts,” Ahmed said. “The Michigan Muslim community came together to turn tragedy into something positive.” 

The website has also turned the charity into a competition between participating states and food drives. Michigan is in the top 20 states, while Cincinnati holds first place after collecting more than 30,000 meals. It has been largest donation that their local food bank had ever received, even on Christmas. 

 “While we mourn the loss of three young and extraordinary American Muslims and the brutal way they were killed, the Quran instructs us to respond to evil with good,” shared Tarek El-Messidi, national coordinator of Feed Their Legacy. “With extremists like ISIS dominating headlines daily, we want America to see that it’s Muslims like Deah, Yusor and Razan who truly represent us. They were killed by a neighbor, but we’ll respond by feeding our neighbors. By doing so, we feed their legacy of serving others.”