One thing about the homeless who congregate near the Civic Center complex in Santa Ana: they can count on meals provided by Christians, including members of Orange County Rescue Mission, the Mariners churches of Irvine and Mission Viejo and, I'd argue most dependably, the Catholic Worker of Santa Ana.
Tonight, members of Orange County's Muslim community get in on the feeding action by sharing iftar with downtown Santa Ana's hungry.
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Iftar is one of the holy observances of Ramadan that has Muslims coming together to break their fasts. Inspired by a similar iftar held with the homeless in Trafalgar Square in London, volunteers from throughout OC have organized tonight's independent event “to provide food to those more in need than themselves,” participant Saira J. Gallo writes to us in an email.
Food and hygiene packages are to be distributed to the homeless in front of Orange County Superior Court from 6 until around 8 p.m. The followers of Islam will then break their fasts.
Some Christian groups mentioned above include prayers or sermons with the food and other assistance they provide to these same poor souls. Gallo mentions the Muslims want to spread “the message of Ramadan and teaching people something of Islam.”
Pass the hummus.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.