Students for a Free Palestine has increased efforts in fundraising for families in Gaza since 2024. Over the past two years, the group has shifted its focus from public demonstrations to fundraising efforts that send money directly to Palestinian families in Gaza. With humanitarian aid blocked and the cost of basic goods in Gaza soaring, SFP members say that channeling funds directly to families is one of the few ways they can provide meaningful support.

As of this semester, SFP is in contact with roughly ten families in Gaza. Fundraising efforts often focus on families’ urgent living expenses and medical needs, which currently include treatment for a mother’s back injury, a brother’s foot surgery, a nephew’s dental surgery, and a niece’s hospitalization. 

“We know that there are still some physical materials that are being stockpiled in Gaza that are being sold at incredibly high, marked-up prices,” College fourth-year and SFP Chair Juwayria Zahurullah said. “And so even though there’s no stream of goods that people can purchase, there is still the availability for people to purchase … food and clothing and medicine, in some quantities, at an incredibly marked[-up] price.”

Zahurullah emphasized that requests come from real people, whom SFP members know by name, and whose situations they are intimately aware of through regular communication.

Within SFP, a fundraising team of students meets weekly and is most closely involved with these efforts. Students raise funds through a variety of events that they regularly organize, such as weekly bake sales in Mudd Center, clothing sales, and art sales selling donated work from Oberlin students. The sales vary in terms of success. College fourth-years Reed Wang and Kayleigh Frazer, who are members of the fundraising team, highlighted some particularly successful fundraisers. These included the yard sale that took place during the first week of school this year and raised about $1,000, and tabling at Colors of Rhythm and the Jane Remover concert at The ’Sco, which raised over $500. In a fundraising team meeting, College fourth-year Mona Shaab emphasized that the amounts raised are meeting only a small fraction of the need, and there is always far more work to be done.

“Even if you’re scrolling on Instagram, in the span of 10 minutes, you will see so many fundraisers of families that are in dire, dire need of support,” Zahurullah said. “And it’s impossible to make a choice [about] who is worthy of support.” 

The group works to balance fund distribution between different families, prioritizing certain requests based on time sensitivity. They often break up larger amounts into smaller disbursements as funds become available. When sending money, SFP must consider how many people they can reasonably support while still making a contribution that’s going to be useful.

“Stretching our resources too thin means that our material impact is lessened for each family the more we try to stretch the fundraising,” Zahurullah said. 

Once collected, funds must pass through a complicated web of transfer methods. Wang and Frazer said some of the recipients of the funds are youth who do not have bank accounts to receive the money, but are able to receive it through cash stores in Gaza. These stores charge steep fees — often around 40 percent of the total amount — just to release the cash, further complicating the process. Additionally, PayPal does not operate in Palestine.

Other Oberlin students have found different ways of fundraising and educating. College third-year Josie Shehadi met a Gazan man named Omar through Instagram in May 2025, and he shared with them his inability to afford basic necessities like food, medicine, and rent, all while distributing aid to his neighbors alongside his fiancée. As a student before the conflict escalated in 2023, Omar designed a book of intergenerational recipes and asked Shehadi to share them. By selling digital copies to friends and colleagues, Shehadi raised around $300. 

“Selling food and recipe books not only helps a family’s survival, but also shares the rich culture of Palestine and the love language of food,” Shehadi wrote in an email to the Review.  

Zahurullah has also been in contact with Shaza Abu Dayeh, a Gazan journalist and psychologist, for around a year and a half. Abu Dayeh spoke at several events organized by Zahurullah, for which she was paid a $2,000 honorarium.

“What I truly wanted to come out of these events were for the people in attendance to see Shaza as an academic peer of all academics here at Oberlin, nationally, globally, and that her being Palestinian from Gaza does not discredit her knowledge and her excellence as an academic,” Zahurullah said. “She was among one of the first deaf psychologists to become certified in the Gaza Strip.”

Shaza has written three books, one of which Zahurullah sold at an event in fall 2024 to raise over $1,000.

College fourth-years Lucy Freeman and Sophia Samra emphasized that all efforts require the involvement of many people, and that SFP has been trying to make the space even more welcoming to new students.

“[SFP’s] structure is super collaborative,” Freeman said. “There’s not any sort of set hierarchy. … Everything is a joint effort.”