THE FACE OF ISLAM:

As a line of schoolchildren obediently marched past the canary yellow lockers Tuesday morning at Woodlawn Community School, two more lines had formed at the end of the hallway -- an assembly line of volunteers unloading a semitrailer full of turkeys, and the mothers and grandmothers waiting to take one home to feed their families.

Volunteers also hung a banner advertising the Sabeel Food Pantry, a Muslim-run pantry on the city's Northwest Side. The mission of Sabeel -- an Arabic word meaning "way" -- is to give the poor a way to survive, a central obligation of the Muslim faith, volunteers say.

For 16 years, the Chicago Muslim community has distributed free Thanksgiving turkeys to underprivileged families on the South Side. But this holiday season, the group more than tripled the number of free birds from last year to 5,000 and expanded the project to eight elementary schools in three neighborhoods.

Tweet   @brothersjudd