[Music]
um evening i am christy chalabi and i'm
bob burkhardt and we are proud to serve
the village as commissioners on the
morton grove community relations
commission we are pleased tonight to
represent the crc in acknowledging
another extraordinary neighbor through
the outstanding neighbor recognition
program this program gives all morton
grove residents the opportunity to
acknowledge an outstanding neighbor
today we are here to recognize a very
special individual and neighbor sabil
ahmed
this is not his first time to be here
as an outstanding neighbor
the first recognition came in 2019 when
sabile and his family during that frigid
cold and snowy winter in february 2019
delivered notes to 40 neighbors offering
to help them get groceries medication
shovel snow
and even offered for them to come to his
home and share a meal
the ahmed's kindness brought media
coverage
where they were able to further share
their message an example of what it
means to be an outstanding neighbor but
first sabil and your family would you
please come up and join us along with
your nominator
one thing that we would like to mention
is he created
a letter it's his dear neighbor hi
greetings of peace please accept this
gift card as a token of appreciation for
being such amazing neighbors a few
months back our family was honored by
the mayor of morton grove and by cnn in
bakers square for helping the neighbors
during harsh chicago winters
baker's square restaurant nominated us
as
excuse me nominated our family as best
neighbors and gave us a gift card of 300
my family and children decided to cash
out this 300 card into 30 cards of 10
each to share this gift with you our
neighbors we always teach our children
sharing is caring it's a small gift but
please enjoy thanks in regards ahmed
family along with their phone number and
address with a ps stating please drop
into our home any time for a cup of tea
and samosas
we now like to invite mayor di maria and
trustee travis to the podium
they would like to present you with some
gifts
[Music]
familiar a familiar face
so seville i i'm not surprised that i
was going to see you here for this type
of an award actually when they made the
award i thought of you first actually so
um i just found a few things from the
village board and from uh the res the
other residents of morton grove who we
represent
on one i always tell people there's a
pen in here for you can use it whenever
you like i don't know if people really
use pens much these days but
put it right there in your pocket and
always think of morton growth the second
one is a pin here that um that we don't
give away willy-nilly um we give these
to people like yourself that represent
morton grove and make a shine which you
have done on numerous occasions so i
can't tell you how proud i am to see you
here again and to give out this award um
then as usual
i'm sure this is a really big deal for
you um we're going to give you a plaque
a certificate that says outstanding
neighbor award
is presented to sabil ahmed in
recognition of being a valuable neighbor
in morton grove dated may 23 2022 signed
by me and um like i said that's usually
not really worth that much you're not
gonna get any free things with my
signature or anything like that maybe i
can sell it on ebay yeah yeah
yeah no
you won't sell it on ebay trust me
hey you can you're not getting any money
and then uh we have a little gift card
here for uh for you for a morton grove
restaurant so that you can go out and
enjoy yourself and um again we're very
appreciative of it and anybody that's
been to these meetings or has even been
in this this neighborhood in particular
uh sabile just lives down the street uh
i don't think anybody's surprised that
he got this award so again we can't
thank you enough for representing morton
grove um and we thank you from the
bottom of our hearts the entire board
and and i represent obviously not only
the board but all of our residents
you're a good man and a good soul and
we're happy to have you in town so thank
you so much thank you
one of the imam here and the reason that
i
really encourage sabil mashallah doing
this and it is through him that he has
also instilled these values into our
community larger community that every
eid or ramadan when it comes in he goes
out to the neighbors and despite the
fact of the faith and you know no faith
he distribute the information in certain
gifts secondly he has written a book in
which he wrote down 50 different ways
how we can reach out to the communities
you know just to share these norms the
common values that we have as a human
being modern growth thank you so much
[Applause]
so first and foremost i want to praise
god for this honor the distinction and
the blessing that he has given not only
to me but to all of us
second of all i want to thank uh
you know for this award i would say this
award is not just for me not just for my
wonderful amazing family i would say
that every single person of morton grove
this award belongs to each single one of
you because i truly believe that morton
grove is the best city in the united
states of america
he's having the first clapping up there
and last but not the least you know when
i see all of you with different shades
and colors and vases and backgrounds it
reminds me of a really important
quotation which is the quran and this is
so relevant especially for this occasion
this is from chapter 49 of the quran
verse number 13.
the creator is addressing to all of us
and he's saying that oh humanity oh
mankind
oh mankind i have created you from one
single male and one single female and
made you into nations and peoples and
tribes that you get to know each other
not that you may hate and despite and
discriminate with each other you get to
know each other then god says that the
best amongst you is the one who is a
well-mannered guard fearing and good
person a lot of things to tackle in the
whole society so us as neighbors as the
board members us as the citizens of this
world we have many things that we can
tackle may god help us to live as
brothers and sisters so not only we can
make this a wonderful city even a
greater city we can make whole humanity
great may god help us all thank you very
much
thank you