As-salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu / Peace and blessings of God be upon you all,
“Those who (in charity) spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public, have their reward with their Lord: on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.” (Surah Al-Baqara, 274)
Let me start this letter wishing all of you Ramadan Kareem as we being our month of faster and prayer.
By the grace of our Lord Almighty, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, we had a successful MAPS banquet on April 27th. The theme of the Banquet was “Serve, Lead and Inspire“. This annual event is our marquee event where we present our progress, publish our Annual Report and unveil our upcoming plans to the community. We also unveiled our 2019 MAPS Highlights video. It is a night when we solicit your continued support to help sustain and grow the masjid. It was a wonderful evening filled with the energy, passion, and faith and I am always re-energized after the event! If you missed the event, you can catch the highlights in this short video and the photo gallery. Please take the time to read the breadth of activities presented in the Annual Report that were written by 12 MAPS Groups and 500+ vounteers.
At the banquet, I had an opportunity to highlight the many of the MAPS activities. I renewed our commitment to the MAPS vision “to inspire and foster a community that impacts the quality of life and spirituality for the individual, family and society guided by teachings of Quran and Sunnah.”
I explained how this Vision is being realized through more than 2000 events we host every year. Sheikh Adam Jamal, our Education Director gave us an update on our Faith and educational activities. Sr Nickhath Sheriff and her guests testified to the impact our Outbound Good through the services of MAPS-MCRC and MAPS-AlSadaqah in the local community. Sr Aneela Afzali, our Executive Director highlighted Inbound Good programs through MAPS-AMEN reaching over 250K people.
During the banquet, I also detailed MAPS financial position and explained how we are using the funds. In 2018, we collected $2.4M from donations, rents and fees. We used this money towards running the masjid ($1100K), educational services ($350K) and charitable services ($950K) which reach several thousand people half of whom are non-Muslims. Given our year-over-year growth of 15%, our 2019 budget is projected to be $2.8M in 2019 to continue these services. By the grace of Allah Al-Kareem (The Generous), we raised $785K during the banquet. We plan on raising another $250,000 during this upcoming Ramadan to meet our fundraising goal of $1M during this period to contribute towards the expected $2.8M budget for this year.
Please try to fulfill your pledges as soon as possible so we can continue to pay our debts and other expenses on time and on a monthly basis. For all of you who missed the event, do not miss in the great rewards of establishing our masjid and make your donation online today or mailing your check to the address below.
MAPS P.O.BOX 2976 Redmond WA 98073
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the dozens of volunteers, the staff and the board for their incredible hard work in making the banquet so successful! I personally witness many in our community spend long hours away from their families to plan and host this banquet. Please join me in making dua for them and ask Allah The Bestower (Al Wahhaab) to reward them with a beautiful reward!
Jazakum Allah khairan / Thank you
Hyder Ali
MAPS President