Ramadan meal among Philly area fund-raisers to aid flood-ravaged Pakistan

Eight-hundred seventy-five thousand homes washed away or badly damaged. Twenty million people displaced. Monsoon rains that swelled the mile-wide Indus River to 12 miles in places. Disease and famine that will last for months.

The worst floods in Pakistan's history have done damage of immense proportions, necessitating an international relief effort of equal scope, says Zaheer Chaudhry, a Bryn Mawr dentist who, along with three friends, is sponsoring a fund-raising dinner Saturday in Villanova to aid victims of the raging waters.

"My parents live in Lahore," said Chaudhry, who came to America in 1974, attended the University of Pennsylvania, and opened his practice in 1980. "My wife's brother lives nearer the floods. . . . They tell me an area the size of Florida is under water."

Twenty years ago, Chaudhry helped create the Pakistani American Society of the Delaware Valley, an ethnic-unity organization that serves the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people born in Pakistan who live in Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware.

In honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began Aug. 11, Chaudhry, Pakistani Americans Mubarik Malik and Mohammad Aziz, and their India-born friend Mahmood Siddique are fasting during the day and breaking the fast with the evening meal called iftar after prayers. Traditionally, the fast is broken with dates and milk, followed by a dinner of spiced rice, chicken, and lamb kebabs.

Chaudhry, Malik, Aziz, and Siddique had planned a free iftar Saturday for 350 friends at the Foundation for Islamic Education, a school and worship center in Villanova. Also sponsoring the event is the Islamic Society of Greater Valley Forge, which opened a school and mosque in Devon in June.

After the flooding began two weeks ago, "we decided we had to do some fund-raising," said Chaudhry. So the sponsors increased the iftar invitation list to 500 and will ask them for donations to help Pakistan. Walk-up guests are also welcome, Chaudhry said. The goal is to raise $50,000, which organizers will channel to Pakistan through the Edhi Foundation, a U.S.-registered nongovernmental organization founded 40 years ago in Karachi to provide free medical services and food to Pakistan's poor.

Named for its founder, Abdul Sattar Edhi, the foundation runs 300 clinics and orphanages in the country of 170 million people. It provides services for the disabled and free shrouding and burial for unclaimed bodies. Rescue workers have reported just 1,500 deaths so far, but more bodies are expected to surface when the waters recede.

Crops are swamped and livestock drowned, setting the stage for long-term food shortages. Epidemiologists anticipate malaria, cholera, dengue fever, and other waterborne diseases as the rains continue.

Pakistan-born Victor Gill, 59, a registered nurse in Northeast Philadelphia, said empathy for the victims caused organizers to suspend a parade in Edison, N.J., to celebrate the anniversary of Aug. 14, 1947, Pakistan's independence day. "All festivities," he said, "are canceled."

Philadelphia-area relief efforts have included clothing drives in Yardley and Bensalem, said Rana Paj, a Bensalem lawyer. A drive for money and clothes is scheduled to take place Wednesday at Food Castle in Bensalem, he said. The restaurant's owner did not return a call for comment.

Gill said Pakistan International Airlines had agreed to ship containers of donated clothes for free.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this week that Pakistan needed at least $460 million in aid immediately.

Ansa Daniel, 34, of Lansdowne, a certified nursing assistant, was born in Lahore. She is praying for the victims, but said she has avoided scenes of the devastation on the Internet because they are too much to bear. Shopping Wednesday at the Greenhouse Indo-Pak Grocery in Upper Darby, she said she sent $200 to her sister Shamsa, a human-services volunteer in Lahore, to apply to humanitarian relief.

Through Daniel's church, Morningstar Christian Church of Northeast Philadelphia, whose congregants include Pakistanis, she hopes to raise more.

A fund-raising iftar dinner for Pakistan flood victims will take place

at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Foundation for Islamic Education, 1860 Montgomery Ave., Villanova. For more information, call 610-547-6822. EndText