AHUKINI — David Chung, team leader of The Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center, was surprised at the low turnout on Friday morning at the Kaua‘i Resource Center on Ahukini Road.
“What? Everybody’s sleeping in because of the holiday?” asked Chung with a smile. “There was only one car when we opened at 8 a.m. Usually there’s a line of people waiting.”
That situation quickly changed as a surge of contributors to the monthly donation event showed up starting an hour later.
The ARC crew showed up following no collections in October, raising questions from some island residents. This November collection is the final event for 2022, as the ARC becomes involved with the numerous tasks The Salvation Army offers during the holiday season.
“The next time we’ll be here is Jan. 27, 2023,” Chung said. “Happy Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year! We are going to be busy on O‘ahu starting with feeding some 2,000 people for Thanksgiving.”
The flow of cars, pickups and vans never slowed, and with an hour remaining in the November collection, the crews were finishing topping off the third extended shipping container.
“I’ve got to work on the holiday,” said Shantelle Rego of the county’s Department of Public Works Solid Waste Division. “This is the third container today. We started out empty, and it’s already filled up. I didn’t want to use the overflow area, but the people are still coming. I had to work on Election Day, too, to receive the containers for this collection.”
Doing the simple math of each container capable of about 17,000 pounds, Kaua‘i residents, businesses and organizations contributed approximately 51,000 pounds of goods, including clothing, furniture, children’s toys, books, shoes, and more items that would otherwise add to the landfill.
The contributed items are used to benefit The Salvation Army ARC program that includes several Kaua‘i clients.
Normally hosted once a month at the Kaua‘i Resource Center, The Salvation Army ARC monthly donation program will not take place in December because the ARC team will be heavily involved with The Salvation Army holiday activities, including the Angel Tree, ringing bells at Red Kettle sites and more.
