Foodbank's drive tomorrow

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Caroline Crowell, 74, accepts Hawaii Foodbank items distributed by Carol Anzai at Kukui Gardens Community Center. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Palolo Elementary School counselor Alison Higa recognizes it in the eyes of the sluggish, irritable children sent to her office for disrupting class.

Craig Thistleton, an outreach social worker with the Waikiki Health Center's Care-A-Van program, sees it all day and all night in the outstretched hands of a growing roster of homeless clients.

What they see is hunger in its simplest and most telling forms. What they recognize are people in their own communities who, for whatever reason, are unable to satisfy a basic human need.

Tomorrow the Hawaii Foodbank stages its annual food drive, with a goal of collecting 525,000 pounds of food and $400,000 in donations to help feed Hawai'i's hungry.

That drive, combined with another next month, may see the Foodbank through the summer, according to Foodbank development and communications director Lori Kaya.

The Foodbank distributes food to some 260 member organizations — including soup kitchens, shelters and other social service organizations — who in turn help to feed about 118,000 people in Hawai'i each week.

Recipients of these free or discounted food donations are officially referred to as "food-insecure," an involved term that essentially means "people who don't know where their next meal is coming from," Kaya said.

According to "Hunger in America 2001," a study paid for by America's Second Harvest, 43,000 of Hawai'i's food-insecure people are children; another 17,000 are senior citizens. Roughly 9,000 are homeless.

From retirees on fixed incomes to recent immigrants struggling to secure a foothold in their adopted home, from the serially unemployed to overburdened families squeezed by a rising cost of living, the breadth of Hawai'i's food-insecure population is significant and, to some, unsettling.

At the same time, the resources available and the complex systems that have developed to collect and distribute food donations have been up to the challenge.

Kukui Gardens kokua

Police Officer Darryl Jones of the District 1 Weed & Seed Unit verifies the eligibility of people waiting at Kukui Gardens to receive Hawaii Foodbank items that are distributed monthly to the apartment residents. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Crowell, 74, lives in Kukui Gardens, low- to moderate-income housing apartments in Kalihi. Once a month, she and her neighbors line up near the Honolulu Police Department's Weed & Seed office to get their share of a free food distribution organized by neighbor Anzai and others.

On Wednesday, Anzai, HPD Sgt. Gordon Shiraishi and other volunteers brought bread, fresh vegetables, fruit, cookies and — as a special treat — boxes of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups from the Foodbank.

Crowell says the monthly giveaways help stretch a tight household budget. She combines her $564 monthly Supplemental Security Income benefits with whatever her daughter makes working part-time at a dry cleaner to cover their $634 rent and other expenses. She receives $170 a month in food stamps (it used to be $180 until she got a $12 cost-of-living increase in her SSI), which is usually depleted by the time Anzai and her helpers break out the distribution boxes.

Wednesday, she had $7 left.

There are 3,000 residents at Kukui Gardens, many of whom live under similar hardships.

"I know a woman who had to decide between food and her diabetes medicine. She had to eat, so she went without her medication," said Anzai, president of the Kukui Gardens Guild.

Anzai said some of her older neighbors fish in the murky waters by River Street. "They eat tilapia every night because they can't afford meat," she said.

The breakfast club

Lucy Mitsuda makes a selection of offerings from the Hawaii Foodbank that are distributed at Kukui Gardens every month. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Each weekday morning, Atiga, 33, and five of her seven daughters eat breakfast at the school cafeteria. (Her two older daughters eat at their own school, Jarrett Intermediate.)

The menu yesterday included a hot dog, fried rice, orange wedges and chocolate milk. As the girls departed for class, there was nothing left but orange rinds and smiles.

Breakfast costs 30 cents and lunch is $1, but few ever pay that much: Principal Ruth Silberstein said 95 percent of the student body qualifies for free or discounted meals.

"It beats McDonald's," Atiga said.

Atiga and her family rely on her husband's income to get by. A corrections officer on Maui, he earns about $2,200 per month. That has to cover the family's $600 rent at the Palolo housing project, his $300 share of the rent on Maui, as well as utilities and other expenses.

"If it weren't for this, I don't know what we would do," Atiga said. "At least I know my girls are well fed. I don't care about anything as long as they have a roof over their head, clean clothes on their backs and food on the table."

Higa, the school counselor, said about 85 percent of the students come from the adjoining housing project. For many, the hot meals they get in school are the best — sometimes the only — meals they have all day.

Many mouths

IHS relies on an active core of faith-based groups, schools and community volunteers to keep its meal service program going. Ninety percent of the food — more than $600,000 worth — comes from donations; much of the rest comes from the Foodbank via a grant.

In any given week, IHS will serve 900 hot meals to people who are homeless, unemployed or simply in need of a meal.

Several means of delivering donated food to the hungry have evolved in Hawai'i. Aloha Harvest has a round-the-clock service that can deliver prepared food (including banquet leftovers) for agencies to distribute quickly.

The Care-A-Van program on O'ahu has two vans that deliver food and basic medical services to homeless people around the island.

"Many of our clients have places they can go for a meal, but when you live on the beach, it's hard to store things," said Thistleton, the social worker. "We try to give them things that they can keep and use when they need it."