We were once strangers here, too.
This community was built one Friday at a time, by people who needed a place and decided to make one. Here is how it happened.
A Rented Room on Maple Street
We began in a community center basement — folding chairs in uneven rows, a bedsheet hung for a partition, a borrowed microphone that cut out during the khutbah. Seventeen people showed up that first Friday. We counted them twice.
The First Ramadan Iftar
Someone brought biryani. Someone else brought jollof rice. A Somali family arrived with samosas still warm from the drive. We ran out of plates and ate standing up, laughing, the parking lot lit by a string of lights someone had found in a closet.
The Day We Got the Keys
The building smelled like old carpet and possibility. We stood in the empty prayer hall and someone said the adhan quietly, almost to themselves. The sound filled the room in a way the basement never could. We cried. We didn't explain why.
The Children's Program Outgrew Its Classroom
We started Sunday school with eight kids and one teacher — Sister Fatima, who had never taught children before but had raised four. By 2019, we needed three rooms, seven volunteers, and a waiting list. The children are the reason we know we got something right.
"Today, Minaret is home to over 400 families, a new Muslim circle that has welcomed 63 people into the faith, and a Friday prayer that fills every row. We are still counting. We are still making room."