JANET BURNS

On Friday, April 21, as Muslims around the country and world celebrated the end of Ramadan with the Eid al-Fitr festival, a group of Muslim families in Nassau County also marked the day with a fairly recent tradition: a fun-filled car parade.

Nearly two dozen cars cruised through the Herricks School District this year (down from around 30 last year, regrettably) in the exuberant caravan, organized by local 501c3 nonprofit organization Herricks Muslim Families.

In a phone interview, Herricks Muslim Families immediate past president Shaheda Quraishi said that the local organization and community group was founded to engage with the school district to help advocate on behalf of Muslim children, and to “help them feel more accepted.”

In 2017, Quraishi explained, the newly formed group was able to get the Eid holiday approved as a school holiday in their district. “We have a lot of Muslim families in our community, so since then we decided to get more formal [as advocates].” parade’s start, held at

“We also do a lot of charity work outside of our local community,” she said, including a recent soup kitchen at Holy Trinity Church in Manhattan.

“One of the biggest parts of Ramadan is charity,” Quraishi said.

There’s certainly an aspect of springtime celebration, too, as the Herricks Muslim Families car caravan illustrated again this year.

Herricks High School, members of school and community leadership gathered to send them off, with Nassau County Police Department vehicles providing a “seamless escort” from start to finish, Quraishi said.

During the parade, she said, “We go through the streets with decorated cars, honking horns and shouting, with the community waving as we pass by. A lot of the local community who is non-Muslim will also come out and wave to us as we drive by; we let them know the route ahead of time.”

“It’s really a nice, fun event. We had great weather, and were just sharing a little bit of holiday cheer with out community.”

At the end of the parade, people soon headed off for the rest of their holiday plans. “It’s a day to really spend with family and loved ones.”

Quraishi noted that the Eid parade in Herricks first started during the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

“When everyone was doing things like car parades for birthdays, that’s when it started. We knew we couldn’t get together, but we wanted to do something [with the community], so we thought, ‘You know what? Let’s have an Eid car parade.’ It was such a hit that we’ve continued it, and plan to do this every year.”