What do you use the big (institution sized) cans of food for, Noreen Bargayo of Spectrum wanted to know Wednesday as the group of Spectrum associates collated the results of the Spectrum Holiday Food Drive being turned over to the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i.
“These are for the bigger pantry programs like The Salvation Army that uses these big cans for their kokua soup kitchens, where they prepare meals for more than a hundred people at a time,” said Wes Perreira, the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i manager. “Everybody needs food. Nothing is wasted.”
A longtime tradition from before Spectrum, the holiday food drive observed by the cable-television company is an annual event, with Spectrum continuing the tradition. This year, the holiday food drive resulted in 880 pounds of nonperishable food being turned over the the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i.
“This is truly awesome,” said Tisha Ruiz of the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i. “People just need to have food, especially during the holidays.”
The Spectrum volunteers noted they had to visit several stores in order to complete the drive.
“We wiped out one store on rice,” they said. “They didn’t have any more so we had to get the long-grain rice. It was the only thing they had left.”
The same situation applied to the canned food, resulting in the institution-sized portions after the more-convenient, family-sized cans sold out.
Ruiz said the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i continues to serve its pantry base from out of the Puhi Industrial Park warehouse.
Currently, the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i is on an outreach mission with appearances at the Downtown Lihu‘e Night Market today from 4 to 8 p.m. on Kress Street.
For the next two Sundays, the Hawai‘i Foodbank Kaua‘i will be participating in Storytime with Mrs. Claus at the Princeville Shopping Center from 3 to 5 p.m.
• Info: hawaiifoodbank.org/kauai
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
