I have always paid zakat via third parties, never directly to the person in need. By third party, I mean, parents, relatives and/or friends back home. They would then give to the person in need. Its either that or the mosques here in the U.S or some Islamic charity organizations. I always wonder if the money ends up in the most deserving hands and if there is any administration fee involved when given to charity orgs. There is always this urge to visit and personally give it to the person in need. I have always wanted to give the zakat money to the person myself, thought never have done it. This year, during my visit to Pakistan in summer, I am planning to take a couple of days and got to some of the most neglected areas of Karachi and distribute ration cards or some other means of food and/or money. Inshaa Allah.
Has anyone ever done that? Please suggest the areas/places I can go for this.
I can’t think of any close relatives that are needy. and even if I did, I am sure they are not needy enough. There are people starving to death for crying out loud.
I don't think you can distribute ration cards. You can, however, distribute actual ration. Generally it will work, but more likely you need to know some people in the locality to be able to distribute.
In my case, for example, my mother personally distributes actual ration (cooking oil, flour bags, sugar etc) in interior Sindh amongst some of the poorest communities, and she is been doing it for many years. There is just so much poverty there, and in such large scale that the mind boggles. So I just give most of my zakat monies to my mother who makes sure it gets distributed to those people.
On the other side, there are some elders in our family who maintain a zakat fund for poor remote relatives. That is another option in some families.