For Arlington resident Karen Zehr, watching the television news about the U.S.-led bombing in Iraq was distressing. So when her church in Fairfax decided it was going to send 50 kits of toiletries to Iraqi families through the Mennonite Central Committee, she readily agreed to take part.
"The fact that this was one tangible way of helping people in Iraq meant a lot to me," Zehr said.
But what started as a small effort by Fairfax City’s Northern Virginia Mennonite Church has grown to an interfaith coalition of four area churches and two Muslim groups. On Saturday, the group loaded 350 kits into a truck that will make its way to MCC headquarters in Pa. From there, the kits will travel to Jordan, then to the Iraqi border, where they will be distributed by the humanitarian organizations the Islamic Relief Agency, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society and CARE.
What’s made the experience meaningful is not only the charity involved but also the cooperation between groups of different beliefs, participants said.
"Through word-of-mouth, people really galvanized around the idea," said Deirdre Ritchie, the project coordinator for the Muslim groups.
Northern Virginia Mennonite Church member and Ritchie’s friend Hoyt Maulden agreed.
"That’s what made the project so much nicer…we made new friends," Maulden said.
The idea of sending the kits started at the Fairfax church as a way to respond positively to the war in Iraq. One member then called other area pacifist congregations, the Herndon Friends Meeting, the Dranesville Church of the Brethren in Herndon, and the Oakton Church of the Brethren in Vienna.
Maulden called Ritchie, who proceeded to contact her children’s school, the Al Faith Academy in Herndon, and the ADAMS Center mosque in Sterling.
"This is kind of our way to deal with the news," Maulden said.
Each kit, valued at $40, contains four bars of soap, a bottle of shampoo, 10 cups of powdered laundry detergent, toothpaste, four toothbrushes, four bath towels, bandages, sanitary pads, and a hairbrush, comb and nail clipper.
"It’s kinda neat that these are going to the people that need them," said Loyce Bongmann of the Oakton Church of the Brethren. Her congregation’s youth group assembled and put the kits together after 90 people had signed up to get the supplies.
For the students at Al Faith Academy, the project helped them not only learn about Iraq, but allowed them to get hands-on with charity. Students made 159 drawings that were included with the kits. The drawings send greetings of salaam, or peace, Ritchie said. Students also helped pack kits.
"The kids from our school had been looking for something to do," Ritchie said.
After this project, the group may look into making kits of school supplies for Iraqi children.
"Church members really like the opportunity to go out and do something," Bongmann said. "We still say that there’s got to be a peaceful solution."