It's no longer easy to sweep our social ills behind a glossy image of paradise.

There are simply just too many people struggling to meet their basic needs, including food and shelter.

Increasingly, there's a much larger group of people with a roof over their heads that make up the working poor.

The Hawai'i Foodbank, which fed 131,862 people last year at its 250 member agencies throughout the state, reports the numbers of people served has grown by almost 14,000 over the past five years.

Quantifying the state's hunger problem is difficult. In 2004, the Hawai'i Health Survey showed that 26 percent of households with annual incomes between $20,000 to $29,999 didn't know where their next meal was coming from. And in nearly 1,000 households, some children did not eat for a day or longer.

While the state Department of Health no longer asks the question in its survey, a key indicator of the growing distress are the long food lines at some agencies that hand out food. Some have lines that can run 300 people deep, with some people making multiple visits each month, beyond just the difficult holiday period.

Making matters worse, while the need is up, the amount of donations in actual food to the Foodbank is down by nearly a million pounds of food. And the drop is seen at all levels — from federal, corporate and public donations.

Solving hunger is complex. Getting food to the needy isn't. The Foodbank has an established islandwide network. But it relies on your donations to rally and help the hungry. The time to give is now.