Photo by Erin Nelson.
Clockwise from bottom left: Volunteers Rafeka Hossain, Lexi Long, Grace Watson, Destini Elston and Itopa Jimoh work together to portion out a donation of halal chicken from the Birmingham Islamic Society at UAB’s Blazer Kitchen on Dec. 15. The Birmingham Islamic Society donates 800 pounds of halal chicken each month to the Blazer Kitchen, a food pantry at UAB that is open to students, faculty, staff and patients at UAB’s hospital system.
When Rafeka Hossain came from Bangladesh to Birmingham to start a master’s program in public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in December 2021, she and her husband didn’t have any transportation to get around.
As a result, they struggled to get access to shop for groceries, especially to find the halal meat required by their Muslim faith, she said.
For meat to be considered halal, certain guidelines must be met during the slaughter of animals.
The Hossains had trouble getting halal meat because about the only place they could find it was at a market in Hoover or in Atlanta, and they rarely found time to make it to either place, Hossain said. UAB provided transportation to the Walmart on Lakeshore Parkway in Homewood, but there was no halal meat there, she said.
They also received food assistance from Blazer Kitchen, which helps students and faculty in need, but Blazer Kitchen also had no halal meat.
So, as a result, the Hossains and their two children, ages 10 and 11, turned to a vegetarian diet for about three or four months. The Hossains were not alone.
The organizers of Blazer Kitchen knew a lot of the international students who used their program were not accessing the frozen meat that was available, said Lisa Higginbotham, UAB’s Benevolent Fund manager who oversees the Blazer Kitchen program. They didn’t realize why this was happening until a volunteer did a survey in March 2022 to find out what shoppers wanted that wasn’t being offered.
Overwhelmingly, the response was halal chicken, Higginbotham said.
Higginbotham reached out to Mary Ann Bodine Al-Sharif, an assistant professor in the UAB School of Education who is a member of the Hoover-based Birmingham Islamic Society, to ask for guidance on obtaining halal chicken.
The Birmingham Islamic Society immediately jumped on the chance to help. A single donor agreed to pay the cost of providing 800 pounds of halal chicken a month to Blazer Kitchen, and since July about 150 of the 750 or so UAB students who use Blazer Kitchen receive halal chicken each month, Higginbotham said. Another 25 or so UAB employees get the halal chicken through Blazer Kitchen as well, she said.
The chicken is delivered by Magic City Harvest, and volunteers show up to help divide the halal chicken into bags and place it in a freezer to be distributed throughout the month, Higginbotham said. Blazer Kitchen even obtained a new freezer to keep the halal chicken separate from other frozen meat, she said.
The staff for Blazer Kitchen gets assistance from volunteers, sometimes from the Birmingham Islamic Society and sometimes from Islamic student groups on campus or other shoppers who want to make sure everybody gets the nutrients they need, Higginbotham said.
“It’s just been an incredible partnership,” she said. “It has been a wonderful opportunity to build community and understanding and make sure every part of the UAB family has nutritious food.”
Ashfaq Taufique, the president emeritus of the Birmingham Islamic Society who played an instrumental part in securing the donation, said this is just another example of the group living out the principles of their faith in action and not just words.
They will continue to do it as long as there is a need and as long as the donor is able and willing, he said.
Hossain said she and her family are grateful. “I really appreciate their efforts.”
