Tool

Interfaith Fast-a-Thon Toolkit

Organize an interfaith Fast-a-Thon to support Muslim members of your community and spark interfaith dialogue.

Why Run an Interfaith Fast-a-Thon?

As you may know, many Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan. They don’t eat or drink from sunrise to sundown every day for a month before a holiday called Eid-al-Fitur. Ramadan occurs at a different time each calendar year. During Ramadan, some Muslim communities host “Fast-a-Thons”. These are events where participants pledge to fast for a day. Then, at the end of the day of fasting, everyone comes together to break the fast and reflect on their experiences as a community.

A Muslim Student Association in Knoxville hosted the first fast-a-thon as a way to invite their community into Ramadan festivities and foster understanding. The concept was then adopted by the National Muslim Student Association.

They’re great interfaith events for a few reasons:

Fasting is an integral part of many religious traditions. Fast-a-Thons open up a space for people to talk about what fasting means to them and creates fertile ground for interfaith dialogue.
The breaking of the fast gives people a common experience to bond around and dialogue about. This is great for community building.
Some fast-a-thon events give attendees the option to donate what they would have spent on food to a charitable organization. Raising money for a common cause gives a simple but powerful example of what can happen if we come together from our various religious and philosophical backgrounds around shared values to work towards the common good.

If that’s why they’re great events, let’s talk about how you actually do it. In this toolkit you’ll find a list of best practices along with a compendium of resources to help you run the best interfaith Fast-a-Thon possible.

Best Practices

Finding Cosponsors

Unless you are already a member or partner of a Muslim community in your area, you will need to speak with someone who is. It is imperative to establish a partnership with a Muslim community before you start any other aspect of the planning. Mosques, community centers, employee resource groups, and Muslim student groups often plan their own festivities for Ramadan. They may be interested in partnering for a fast-a-thon, or it might be something that they consider for future years. As with all interfaith work, building relationships and respecting religious practice are key.

Instead of just asking people to just cosponsor, invite them to be on the planning committee for the event. People who actually have a hand in the planning of an event tend to be more invested.

You also want to make sure that you have a diverse group of people from religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds i nvolved. Making sure there is diversity present should be one of your top priorities. An easy way to do this is to make a list of all the different religious and intentionally secular groups you can engage and make sure that you reach out to each and every one of them.

Donations

Many fast-a-thons give participants the option to donate money or food to a food-related cause. The primary purpose of these events is always to build community and interfaith understanding, but you may decide that you also want to offer an opportunity for people to broaden their impact. If you decide to accept donations, decide which charity you’ll be supporting and be sure to work out the details with them ahead of time.

Promotion

On top of doing standard promotion like putting up flyers and personal outreach, consider doing two other specific types of promotions:

First, a lot of campaigns have had success giving people who donate a shirt or a button that they’ll all wear on the day of the fast. These serve as both an incentive for people to donate and free promotion of the actual event.
Second, consider collecting fasting pledges and donations around a week before the actual event. This way you can get a feel for how many people are attending

Making it Interfaith

An important part of an interfaith Fast-a-Thon is giving people space to voice their religious and non-religious values. To make sure that it’s an integrated part of the event, have someone whose entire job is to think about how you can incorporate interfaith cooperation into everything from your promotion to the actual event. Here are three good examples of what this person can do:

Develop conversation cards to spark dialogue when people are eating.
Come up with the list of who is speaking at the breaking of the fast to make sure there is interfaith representation.
Moderate any formal dialogue that happens during the event.

Tools to Get You Started

Sample Schedule

Note: Fast is broken after sundown. Thus, the timing will shift based on the time of year. Make sure that the Muslim group with whom you work has he final say on timing.

7:00pm-7:30pm (or sometime around sundown): Break the fast and let everyone eat!
7:30pm-7:40pm: If you collected donations, talk about the amount of money raised and the impact it will have on your action issue or cause you’re donating to.
7:40pm-8:00pm: Invite diverse members of the planning committee to talk about what their religious and philosophical traditions say about the importance of fasting.
7:30pm-7:40pm: Have a Talk Better Together or some other type of reflection with people that have come.

ProTip: Don’t make people wait for food. They’re hungry and can get feisty if they have to wait for food for too long

Sample Interfaith Component

The ‘Talk Better Together’ format (find the full toolkit here) is a great way to incorporate interfaith dialogue and reflection into your event in a fun, large group dialogue. Here is a sample set of questions that you could use:

What’s your favorite food and why?
Why did you fast today?
What is it in your religious, philosophical, or personal background that compelled you to do this?
What are concrete ways that we can take action together to continue to make an impact on X issue?

Don’t have room for a full-scale dialogue? You can also use some of the scriptures and writings that we have compiled in our Shared Values Facilitators Guide that talk about the importance of alleviating poverty and being hospitable.

Sample Timeline

Note: Ramadan takes place at a different time on the Gregorian calendar every year. This is just a sample to demonstrate how long it might take to complete different tasks.

September 1st: Compile a list of religious/non-religious, cultural, and service groups that you want to get involved.
September 2nd: Reach out to those groups to gauge their interest in being involved with the Fast-a-Thon.
September 3rd-15th: Have one-on-one meetings and begin to officially secure cosponsors and the planning committee for the event.
September 16th: Have your first meeting with everyone and start divvying up roles. This is also a good time to start thinking about when you actually want to have the event.
September 22nd: Finalize when you’re having the event, who you’re donating to (if applicable), and where it’s happening. Seek sponsorship from your organization or reach out to local restaurants to see if they’ll donate food to the fast-breaking event.
September 25th: Start public promotion.
October 5th: Start taking pledges online.
October 10th – 14th: Table at high traffic points promoting the Fast-a-Thon and taking pledges and donations. Alternatively, reach out to individuals and organizations as much as possible.
October 14th: Send out a press release, alerting the local newspaper and news stations about what’s happening.
October 15th: Have the Fast-a-Thon!
October 16th: Celebrate your success by posting all over social media about how well you did!

ProTip: If you are actually the one running the Fast-a-Thon and you’re not fasting because of religious reasons, don’t fast. You’ll need to have your wits about you the day of the event, to deal with any unexpected hiccups. It’s hard to do that with hunger pangs and a hazy head.