Our Story
In March 2019 three Iraqi-American friends with organizational and public relations experience thought of giving back to the community through a non-profit organization. After some soul searching they realized that the diversity within our community is a source of richness, potential, and strength. Founders envisioned this space to be one where community members across generations and ethnicity can explore the intersection of individual and community in a creative and positive way.
Ali, Moid, and Muhanned met in March 2019 to discuss a need to create a non-profit organization to bring all Iraqis together regardless of their background, religion , ethnics.
In May 2019, they signed on the fourth member, May AlKhalaf, who has plenty of experience in arranging popular events and an active participant in many other non-profits.
In October, 2019, the founders with the help of members of the community whom they call friends of SOM studied the manifesto of similar nonprofits and agreed on the vision of the organization, established distinctive bylaws and the mission statement.
When Covid-19 hit, the founders began meeting on zoom and commenced the hard work of registration, website and logo design, and recruiting more board members especially those from the young generation.
The founders got lucky to recruit another volunteer Ban Alani who is a UX Researcher. With Ban’s expertise initiated the design criteria for SOM to soar on cyber space. Noor AlJawad joined SOM and are great addition to the board of directors.
In December 2020, and most importantly, the founders were able to inspire a great group of young generation volunteers who are even more enthusiastic about the organization and without whom the organization would not have been complete and the work not completed.
January till April 2021, all the necessary actions were completed prior to launch: from registration with the State of California to website design including adding pages for volunteering and club groups, another for local businesses, to approving the logo, inviting comments and suggestions from within and from without the community, and setting up the events schedule on the calendar.
SOM website go live April 11th, 2021