Each year, Muslim students from different countries come to Mt. Pleasant, MI, to attend Central Michigan University. There are also several Muslim faculty members and graduate students who are staying in Mt. Pleasant with their families and children for several years. The number of Muslims in the city is increasing every year, and the current number is approximately 200. 

Muslims are required to consume chicken and beef, which are slaughtered according to the laws mentioned in Islam, known as halal meat. However, there is no local grocery store in Mt. Pleasant where raw halal meat can be purchased. Therefore for certified raw halal meat, students and families are relying on the grocery stores in neighboring towns (such as Midland, Saginaw and Lansing), which are approximately 35 to 55 miles away from Mt. Pleasant. It takes from 1.5 up to 3 hours to go and come back from these cities. This long drive is often very time consuming, tiresome, and dangerous, specially, during the exam weeks and winter season. Moreover, some of the students and families do not have car and experiencing difficulty in buying halal meat. 

We, therefore, request the local stores of Mt. Pleasant (such as Kroger, Meijer, Ric's Food Center, Walmart etc.) to open a halal meat section in their stores as soon as possible due the increasing demand of the Muslim community in the city. Since the halal chicken and meat has to be certified, we strongly recommend the local stores to sell chicken products from Crescent Foods (http://crescenthalal.com/) and beef products from Midamar (www.midamar.com).