NAWILIWILI — Royal Sonesta Kaua‘i Resort general manager Paul Toner and his team turned over 3,823 pounds of food on Friday to the team from Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank.
Kelvin Moniz, the executive director for KIFB, said the food is sorely needed to help with the food bank’s distributions that include the kupuna programs, as well as the twice-monthly emergency food distributions.
“There is still a lot of people that need help with food. We’re still getting calls from people we started during the spring break that say they still need food. We started this program during the spring break when students, especially those on free and reduced lunch, had no access to food because school was out,” Moniz said.
“Families who needed food could call and we would set up food packages based on the number of people in the family. Additionally, they would set an appointment for when they would come to pick up instead of having to work with others coming in for emergency food.”
One of the Sonesta employees who helped coordinate the food drive said everything started, as a random act of kindness in February.
“The response by the employees was great,” she said. “We had to extend this food drive for a full month, from Feb. 17 to March 17. We also said we would do this in the spring instead of waiting until fall.”
The employee said she personally could not see how people can get food because the prices are so high, and family income levels aren’t the same
as pre-COVID.
“This is worse than before COVID,” she said. “But I’m so glad we have employees who understand and are so generous. I’m sure there are a lot of people who can use the help from the Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank.”
The Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank welcomes contributions by visiting www.kauaifoodbank.org.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
