On weekends for more than five years, volunteers at the East Plano Islamic Center have braved wind, cold and, recently, heckling protesters to pass out boxes of food to a long line of expectant cars.
The volunteers, members of a robust Muslim community anchored by the mosque, are part of one of several of EPIC’s outreach efforts, from its warming shelter to its free clinic to plans for a new community services center in Plano.
“We feel like this is our job,” said Mohamed Habib on a frigid Saturday in January, a volunteer at the mosque who runs the food drive. “We help people.”
Habib and others picked from the top of a stack of cardboard boxes packed earlier in the month, passing them through windows and stowing them in trunks. They shared smiles and waves with recipients, many of whom they see regularly at the weekend distribution that’s open to all.
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Then-board president Abdullah Shegow wheels out boxes of food during the Help Your Neighbor Drive Through Food Pantry at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) Masjid on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026 in Plano.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
EPIC has continued its work to help the hungry and unhoused and even expanded efforts despite targeted attention from protesters and state officials, including Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott, who have lodged accusations, initiated lawsuits and launched investigations into the center and its plans.
Much of the scrutiny involves The Meadow, formerly called EPIC City, a planned Muslim-centric neighborhood spanning Collin and Hunt counties. Plans for the development roughly 40 miles northeast of downtown Dallas include more than 1,000 homes, schools, a mosque, assisted living, apartments, clinics, retail shops and sports fields on around 400 acres.
The planned neighborhood, which leaders say is meant to be a nonexclusive, well-integrated Muslim community, has thrust EPIC into the national spotlight as leaders accuse the project and EPIC of violating securities laws and funeral licensing rules.
But a day at the Plano mosque reflects little of the political and legal arguments swirling between officials and on social media over land, religion and American identity.
Volunteer Mohamed Habib loads a box of food into a vehicle during the Help Your Neighbor Drive Through Food Pantry at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) Masjid on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026 in Plano.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
“We see some hateful rhetoric coming from our politicians to try to divide our own neighbors based on religion or where they came from or how they look,” said Abdullah Shegow, who led EPIC’s board until Jan. 18. “This is nothing new. … We will not stop because of protests.”
A day at EPIC
Teenagers filled EPIC’s gymnasium with the sounds of squeaking sneakers and dribbled basketballs. Volunteers donned coats and hats to pass out food. Later in the day, the mosque began the process of transforming the same gymnasium into Plano’s overnight warming shelter.
That blustery January Saturday was peaceful, but just weeks before came a day imbued with fear. Anti-Muslim protesters gathered outside of EPIC in December, organized by far-right activist and conservative influencer Jake Lang, who held a severed pig’s head and led a small crowd around Plano with a banner reading “Americans against Islamification.”
Volunteers set up a few hundred cots for those seeking shelter in the Plano Overnight Warming Station at the East Plano Islamic Center on Jan. 23, 2026.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
The provocative group that arrived in Plano was met with peaceful opposition, community members brandishing signs that displayed Bible verses and proclaimed pride in the Muslim faith, said Yasir Qadhi, resident scholar at EPIC.
EPIC leaders knew of the planned demonstration in advance.
The mosque is no stranger to protests. During Friday prayers, when thousands of Muslims come to EPIC to pray, protesters can often be found outside their mosque, yelling in bullhorns at congregants, “You pray to the wrong God,” Qadhi said.
Shegow blames the words of some state officials and politicians for the attention.
“That’s what is bringing protesters to our doorstep, because of what our politicians are saying,” he said.
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Unsure what Lang’s mid-December protest would look like, the mosque asked the community to stay home.
“That day, everybody was scared,” Habib said.
But they did not close down their free food drive or medical clinic scheduled at the same time as the demonstration — “that’s not fair,” Qadhi said. He called the protesters’ timing the “irony of ironies.” Some cars were deterred by the demonstration, but EPIC managed to distribute donations despite the loud crowd.
“This is a time where we need to showcase our faith and our determination and our patience,” Qadhi said.
The weekly distribution of food started during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many lost work. Volunteers packed hundreds of boxes each week and a line of cars would stretch out from the mosque to the road. To this day, each box is filled with rice, flour, sugar, oil, canned food, pasta and more. They also pass out baby formula, handing over the containers through rolled-down windows with a smile.
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As costs rise and the economy slows, they’ve seen more cars show up in recent weeks, and serve around 150 every weekend, Qadhi said. Most recipients, volunteers said, are not Muslim or part of the EPIC community.
“This [is] part of our faith,” Shegow said. “We have to feed our neighbors, we have to help the homeless. We have to help those who are in need,” he said, whether they are friend or foe.
Resilience, faith in spite of hate
Around midday on a Friday in December, the EPIC Masjid was abuzz. Hundreds of Muslims — immigrants from Pakistan, Senegal, India, Egypt, Mali and American converts to Islam — trickled in for the mosque’s main weekly prayer. As they took their shoes off and found seats, they chatted in different languages, but “As-Salaam-Alaykum” was a common greeting on almost everyone’s lips.
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It was just a week earlier that protesters disrupted the mosque’s weekly food donation drive. If members of the congregation were shaken by the anti-Islam demonstration, they don’t show it. Aside from a police officer outside the mosque, it was a typical Friday prayer service.
Women in colorful hijabs and ankle-length abayas sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the blue carpet on the second floor. They overlooked the chandeliers hanging above the first floor where the men gathered and the imam spoke from his podium. Around 100 men prayed in an overflow room in the mosque’s gymnasium.
Qadhi told congregants the group of protesters “neither represents Jesus Christ nor do they represent what is good in this country.”
A volunteer sets up cots for those seeking shelter from the cold in the Plano Overnight Warming Station at the East Plano Islamic Center on Jan. 23, 2026.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
He told the community to “fight that hatred with love, to respond to that anger with politeness,” as worshippers nodded in agreement or closed their eyes to reflect. Qadhi encouraged the congregation to prepare for more Islamophobic incidents and have faith.
“They’re going to be picketing outside the masjid, they’re going to be saying slurs … they’re going to be burning the Quran,” Qadhi said. “The first reaction of the believer should be to turn to Allah.”
Over the years, EPIC has provided more than 300,000 meals to the hungry and opened the doors of its gymnasium as a warming center to more than 8,000 people experiencing homelessness, Qadhi said during his sermon.
Unlike regular weekly prayer services, the Friday service in December began with a video projected on screens throughout the mosque about a new 20,000-square-foot community center that EPIC plans to build in downtown Plano near the Parker Road DART station.
Maria Lopez is handed a box of food as she goes through the Help Your Neighbor Drive Through Food Pantry at the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC) Masjid on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026 in Plano.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
The facility will have shelters for the homeless, a food pantry, showers and counseling services to serve the broader community in Plano.
It’s been in the works for years, and Qadhi said the project is a continuation of the community service that volunteers at EPIC have been doing already. He said the project wasn’t prompted by the protests, but that the wave of anti-Islam sentiment increased the “urgency” for showing the outside world how EPIC contributes to Plano and beyond.
But the community expects no thanks in return, he said. For Qadhi, regardless of what activists or politicians are throwing at his community, their mission is to show love.
“We’re American, we’re Muslim,” Qadhi said. “This is our First Amendment right. We’re going to respond to hatred with love.”
Email tips on all things Collin County to lilly.kersh@dallasnews.com.