After connecting through social media, an informal network of moms started crowdfunding to help families in Gaza afford food and shelter.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
A ceasefire agreement reached in October has brought a relative and tentative peace to Gaza, but many of its residents are living in tents or in bombed-out remains of their homes. And large aid organizations say food shortages are still extreme. A group of mothers in Michigan, using online crowdfunding tools, is trying to help. Michigan Public’s Beenish Ahmed reports.
BEENISH AHMED, BYLINE: Before the Israel-Hamas war broke out in 2023, Rachel Smalley didn’t know much about Gaza, but videos on Instagram captured her attention. That’s how she connected to the Mousa family in Gaza. After forming a small nonprofit along with an activist friend, she spends nearly every Saturday morning selling things they make to help support the Mousas.
RACHEL SMALLEY: So I have made homemade soy candles. We have pins. We have stickers.
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AHMED: Smalley works a demanding job in marketing. Fundraising takes time that she might otherwise spend with her 2-year-old son. But she says he’s a big reason why she does it.
SMALLEY: Becoming a mother. I could – sorry, I’m getting emotional. I couldn’t know what was happening there and do nothing. It was just impossible (crying) not to get involved.
AHMED: Hani Almadhoun works for the United Nations’ Agency for Palestinian Refugees. He says crowdfunding campaigns like the one Smalley runs have made a difference for some.
HANI ALMADHOUN: What that created, though, created a new class of people in Gaza called Mubadireen, which is basically people who do initiatives. So those folks raise money from those communities that they tap into, and they bring help to their community.
AHMED: Another mom, Katherine Love, crowdfunds for dozens of Gazan families from her home in Coldwater, a small town in Michigan. She has a hectic life as a full-time therapist and mother of four kids under 6. Love’s crowdfunding efforts began after she connected with a young mother in Gaza named Bayan Matar.
KATHERINE LOVE: It kind of built from there, and I was learning from other people – mostly other women, other moms who were also doing this.
AHMED: Love has raised more than $30,000 for Bayan and her family. Bayan didn’t want to be interviewed for this story, but in WhatsApp memos, her father, Hisham Matar, described what they’re going through.
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HISHAM MATAR: No schools for the children, no work, no essentials for life, no electricity, no water – running water, no electricity, and no fuel. And day by day, things get much, much harder…
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Vocalizing).
MATAR: …Than the day before.
AHMED: Matar says the family home was damaged by an Israeli airstrike, so they now live in a relative’s attic. He was excited to learn that Love lives in Michigan.
MATAR: There, in Michigan, I became what I am now.
AHMED: Matar studied engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit in the late ’80s. He was a manager for Gaza’s water system but hasn’t been able to work since the war began. Love knows that the Matars and a lot of other families rely on her crowdfunding campaigns.
LOVE: It’s a constant – like, there’s just no time where I’m not thinking about it.
Banana.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Ah.
AHMED: And as Love watches her young children play with a banana, she says she knows food like that remains scarce in Gaza. That helps motivate her to keep doing all she can to feed families there. For NPR News, I’m Beenish Ahmed in Detroit.
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