Amani Ahmed received a Jefferson Youth Community Service Award for her efforts to help the needy through Eleven Points, a Muslim-Jewish interfaith youth group she co-founded.
By Bill Sanservino
When Princeton resident Amani Ahmed created Eleven Points, an organization dedicated to bringing Jewish and Muslim kids together to work on good causes, she had no idea that it would result a prestigious award lauding her service to the community.
Ahmed, a 16-year-old rising junior at Stuart Country Day School, received the Governor’s Jefferson Youth Community Service Award on June 8 in recognition of Eleven Points work to combat hunger, homelessness and poverty.
Also recognized were the organization’s co-founders — Dean Alamleh, a rising junior at Robbinsville High School, and Zain Bhayat, a rising sophomore at South Brunswick High School.
The Jefferson Award was created in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Senator Robert Taft and Sam Beard, as the “Nobel Prize” for public service.
The award, named after Thomas Jefferson, centers on the belief that all citizens have a responsibility to work towards the betterment of their communities through economic participation, public service and volunteerism.
Ahmed said that winning the award was a total surprise.
“I knew that we had been nominated, but I thought that winning the award was a complete long shot,” she said.
“When we started Eleven Points, it was something we were doing to benefit the community. To help people and build bridges,” she said. “With the recognition that we’re getting, I’m hoping we will get more interest and more participation, and that people will see the impact that we are making.”
Ahmed said that the idea for Eleven Points came to her last summer as an offshoot of volunteer work she was doing at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen coupled with a desire to help bridge the gap between the Muslim and Hebrew communities.
“I wanted to combine the community service work I was doing with some sort of interfaith organization,” Ahmed said.
She approached Alamleh and Bhayat, long-time friends who participate with her in a monthly Muslim discussion group run by the Princeton University Office of Muslim Life, with the concept, and they agreed to work with her.
“Growing up as an American Muslim, you see tension between different religious groups, especially between Muslim and Jewish people,” Ahmed said. “We thought that a great way to build bridges between these two communities would be to do something together that would help people.”
“I knew that when youth get together, they can get a lot done,” Ahmed said. “We don’t have a lot of the same cynicism as adults. We’re not as jaded. I think we believe in a brighter future.”
The three chose the name Eleven Points to illustrate the concept of people from the two faiths working together. It represents the sum of the six points of the Star of David and the five points of the Islamic crescent moon and stars.
Having settled on the organization’s name and mission, Ahmed contacted Anshe Emeth, a Jewish temple in New Brunswick, in order to solicit participation from Jewish youth.
The temple was very interested in the concept and even hosted Eleven Points’ first event last October. The event involved kids from both faiths working together to make 500 hygiene bags—a bag containing basic necessities such as toothpaste, a tooth brush, razor and deodorant—for TASK. Ahmed said she chose to work with TASK as their first beneficiary due to her familiarity with the organization.
Eleven Points’ second event, held in April, involved the creation of 300 lunch bags and 200 hygiene bags for Homefront, an organization that works to help the homeless.
“We were looking for a new organization to work with and someone recommended Homefront,” Ahmed said. “I looked into it and saw all of the great work they do. We had decided that we don’t want to help the same organization over and over again. We want to diversify the beneficiaries of our work, and help a wide range of people to show that we don’t only care about one aspect of the community.
“We believe it’s important to try to reach a broader audience to show people what Eleven Points can do, and that we have the capacity to do more than just make more than one kind of item. We just don’t just get together and put stuff in bags.”
Ahmed said they are currently working on the schedule for next year, when they hope to sponsor three or four events and get even more people involved. She estimated that the turnout for the first two events was between 30 and 40 kids from various communities throughout central Jersey.
One idea they are considering for their next event is a park cleanup.
“It doesn’t necessarily help an organization, but it’s something that helps the community and the environment,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed is also looking to diversify the organization’s leadership.
“We are looking for more Jewish youth who would like to help lead the effort with us and take a role in making the events happen, rather than just participating in them,” Ahmed said.
Meanwhile, Ahmed is looking forward to her junior and senior years in high school, although right now she is unsure what college she wants to attend or her ultimate career path.
“I would hope I’m doing something that’s still impacting people’s lives and helping them,” she said. “I want to do something that will touch someone’s heart.”
Ahmed, who was born in Princeton, credits her parents with her desire to work for the common good.
“The idea of community service is something that my parents have advocated. It’s a value my parents have always promoted and instilled in me.”
Ahmed’s father, Shikil, is a former investment banker and now runs his own hedge fund called Princeton Alpha. Her mother, Faria, studied electrical engineering but left her job to be a stay at home mom.
She is active in the community, including volunteering as a docent at Princeton University Art Museum.
Ahmed also has two siblings: Ziad, 14, a student at Princeton Day School; and Inaya, 11, who is also a student at Stuart.
Eleven Points was not Ahmed’s first foray into the world of philanthropy. When she was a freshman, she conducted a fundraiser to benefit TASK called “300 Donating 30,” that collected $15,000.
Her goal was to get 300 people to donate at least $30, and while she didn’t reach her participant goal, she far surpassed her dollar goal of $9,000. This was thanks to people who donated more than $30.
Ahmed said she hopes that Eleven Points continues after she graduates and maybe even grows into a nation-wide organization.
“Eleven Points is very much a high school organization,” she said. “Once we graduate, I’m hoping that it will still continue to be strong and people will take our places as leaders.”
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