UA to provide boxed meals for Ramadan

For Penn Muslims — especially those who lack kitchens — observing Ramadan during the academic year just got a lot easier.

As part of a new Undergraduate Assembly initiative, Penn Dining agreed to supply free boxed breakfasts for observant Muslims during Ramadan, which started on Aug. 21 and will end Saturday.

Executed for the first time this fall, the Ramadan “Fast Food” proposal was passed unanimously in the spring and was organized in collaboration with the Muslim Students Association and the Office of the Chaplain.

Muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sunset during the holy month of Ramadan. Since dining halls are not open before sunrise, the UA and MSA helped secure funding for the boxed meals, or Suhoor, which are handed out every night for the evening meal of Iftar.

The meals are funded by the Office of the Chaplain and Penn Dining Services.

“As upperclassmen, a lot of us thought it was vital to ... make sure that freshmen have it a little bit easier during Ramadan and to maintain that same system of eating while they are in college like they were able to at home,” said MSA communications chairwoman and College junior Roxana Moussavian.

Sakina Zaidi, a College senior and current UA treasurer, was the force behind the UA initiative, recalling her own dilemma during freshmen year.

“There are a lot of freshmen, and none of them have kitchens,” said Zaidi, who is Muslim. She explained that when she lived in Hill College House her freshman year, she ate “a lot of microwaveable meals,” which she described as “really gross.”

According to Moussavian, the boxed meals contained “a sandwich with some protein, vegetables and another food item of some sort.”

Both Zaidi and Moussavian agreed that Penn Dining has been “insanely helpful” during the first two weeks of school.

Zaidi said the initiative has been successful so far, and that “every single one of the boxes was taken by the end of the night” each night for the past week.

“There has been really good feedback in terms of how good the food was [and] how well organized it was,” she added. “[Penn Dining was] always on time.”

When asked whether the initiative would be implemented in the future, Zaidi explained that it would depend on the timing, since Ramadan is based on the lunar calendar and moves forward about 10 days each year. After 2011, Ramadan will not take place during the academic year for nearly a decade, but Zaidi affirmed that the most important thing is preparation.

She is also confident that the program will run next year.

“The key is really to make sure that whenever in the next 10 years or so when Ramadan comes back into the academic year that this program is all set up and ready to go,” she said.

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