INSIDE THE RESCUE - Aloha Harvestexcited about events such as the Empty Bowl, to be held March 31. Aloha Harvest is the charity selected to benefit from this fundraising event. Tickets

INSIDE THE RESCUE Rescuing Food to Feed Hawaii’s Hungry January 2017 | Volume 4, Issue 1

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Lisa Tomihama, Chair

Mark E. Davis, Secretary

Joanna Kawamoto, Treasurer

Kevin Oda

Aulani Kekuna

Bronson Chang

Summer Kaiawe

Sharon Spear

Debra Van Zile

Robert Harrison, Emeritus Chair

STAFF

Ku´ulei Williams

Mele Pepa Latu

Brianna Murray

Greg Nacapoy

Hiram Johnson

George Stevens

Michael Lelafu

Sini Pepa

Kōkua Today

Donate by Check Aloha Harvest

3599 Waialae Ave #23 Honolulu, HI 96816

Donate by Credit Card

Call (808) 537-6945 or visit

www.alohaharvest.org

Donate Food Call (808) 537-6945

or email [email protected]

Donate Time

Call (808) 537-6945 or email

[email protected]

Food Donor Corner

Back in April, Aloha Harvest’s “Just Eat It HI — A Film Screening & Chef Challenge” served as an introduction for the organization whose mission is to rescue food to feed Hawai`i’s hungry and Straub Medical Center. The hookup has worked enor-mously well for both. Straub General Manager Timothy E. Barksdale realized how much sense it would make to have his Hawaii Pacific Health facility share with Aloha Harvest regularly. By June, Straub was making dona-tions. The refrigerated trucks come to Straub early in the morning twice a

week and on call. Drivers load up to 80 pounds of healthy meals and snacks left from the night before, including a variety of entrees, rice, dessert and fruit. The film screening and “challenge” that inspired the partnership pro-vided two very different looks at the serious problem of hunger and some of its solutions. “Just Eat It. A Food Waste Story” is a 74-minute Canadian docu-mentary about food waste and res-cue. Creators found that half the food in North America is thrown away, yet one in 10 people are “food insecure.” The documentary looked at shoppers’ “obsession with expiration dates, perfect pro-duce and portion sizes.” Before the screening, Hawaii chefs Mark Noguchi, Lee Anne Wong, Ronnie Nasuti, Lowell Godin and Misi Toilolo were (see more pg 6)

Straub Medical Center’s Food Service Staff. Photo by Straub Medical.

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Message from the E.D. Is it really January 2017? Now that 2016 is in the past it seems like it flew by in a blur. Aloha Harvest had another busy year with many exciting memories to reflect upon! On behalf of the board and staff of Aloha Harvest, I would like to say a big MAHALO to our partners who helped to make 2016 successful. To our many food donors, hardworking agencies, financial contributors, and volunteers . . . we could not have done this work without your partnership! Each year, in Hawaii alone we throw out an estimated 273,000 tons of food! Unbelievable, right? Last year, Aloha Harvest rescued 2,249,095 pounds of food!! Together, We helped feed our community of needy, homeless individuals and families (approximately 1,400,000

meals); Diverted good food from filling our landfill, reducing the amount of methane gas released into the air; Recycled food, saving it from being thrown away; Helped 182 agencies save thousands of dollars and utilize this money toward their services, and; Partnered with an additional 57 new food donors. That’s an amazing accomplishment! Other reflections for 2016 include: Working with our local chefs and educating the community on food waste at our successful “Just Eat It”

tasting and film screening event; Encouraging education of middle and high school students about hunger and homelessness through our

“Compassion in Arts” event; We were selected as a charity to benefit from the “Party 4 a Purpose” event sponsored by Hawaii Profes-

sionals Foundation; Fourth annual “Fill the Truck” community support food drive; Selected as 1 of 10 charities on O`ahu to have an Electric SMART car donated by the Hawaiian Electric

Foundation. (Pictured on the left: Ku’ulei Williams, Execu- tive Director of Aloha Harvest and Lauren Lum of Mercedes Benz.) As we look to 2017, we are excited about events such as the Empty Bowl, to be held March 31. Aloha Harvest is the charity selected to benefit from this fundraising event. Tickets are available online at emptybowlhawaii.org or call our office at 537-6945. Have a wonderful, prosper- ous New Year!

FOLLOW US: @alohaharvest

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Agency Highlight Having to make a choice between feeding your family or paying the rent, or between eating or buying a much needed medication, is not a choice anyone should have to make. That’s the guiding principle for Feeding Hawaii Together, a non-profit that started 15 years ago as an outreach program for Word of Life Christian Center. The program’s vision is to “provide our community the necessities of life for full productivity” and the mission is simply to prevent home-lessness. Feeding Hawaii Togeth-er focuses on serving its clients with compassion and developing individual growth. It also wants to empower people by offering them the dignity of choice. Three days a week, those that qualify can “shop” from an ar-ray of perishable and non-perishable foods in refrigerators and on the shelves of its Kaka`ako home.

The food is free, thanks to dona-tions from organizations like Aloha Harvest, which drops off food once or twice a week. The delivery ranges from 3,000 to 10,000 pounds of food, according to Feeding Hawaii Together Assis-tant Director Diana Lorenz. “Individuals can shop once a week and take home as much food as they can carry,” Lorenz says. “Feeding Hawaii Together is the only place that offers this kind of service in Hawaii, and perhaps even the nation.” With people able to choose what they want and need, food waste is cut. Clients are predominantly 55 and older, 20 percent are house-less and the rest are working poor who qualify based on USDA pov-erty financial standards. In 2015, the organization provided more than 3.2 million pounds of food, to nearly 77,000 people. It serves all of O`ahu and is contem-plating branching out to other is-lands. It can serve up to 500 clients each day, or 1,500 a week. Every week, 25 to 30 new clients show up.

About 300 come by all three days (Tuesday-Thursday) and some come much less often. Feeding Hawaii Together doesn’t care how often they come, as long as everyone who needs food has the opportunity to get it. “We want people,” Lorenz says, “living from paycheck to paycheck, social security check to social se-curity check, to know that we are here for them when they need our help.” Aloha Harvest’s contribution is of-ten drinks and prepared food such as bentos. “The prepared food is excellent for us to have to give to the houseless that come so they have food al-ready prepared for them,” Lorenz says. “Since we are a grocery store style pantry, our clients do need a kitchen. But our houseless clients do benefit from what we do have, which is produce and lunch-eon meats and bread, granola bars, crackers, cookies, on a weekly basis.” Duane Makalena got Aloha Har-vest involved when he was the pantry manager (see more page 6)

Bring your canned goods on

down to Safeway Kapahulu on

Sat., Feb. 4 for our annual Fill

the Truck Food Drive. Our

team of volunteers will be there

8 am to 1 pm. Look for our truck

and tent in the parking lot!

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EMPTY BOWL HAWAI`I 2017

TICKET ORDER FORM FOR CHECK PAYMENTS ONLY

Please complete this Order Form and submit check payment by:

1) Mail to Aloha Harvest by March 20, 2017, or

2) Hand-deliver to Aloha Harvest office up until March 30, 2017. Office hours are Monday to Friday,

8 am to 5 pm., or

3) Hand-deliver to Dale Matsumoto-Oi at Hawaii Potters’ Guild on Wednesday nights (except

1/25/17 and 3/1/17) at 6:30-9:30pm, up until March 15, 2017.

If you have any questions, please call Aloha Harvest at 537-6945.

General Admission Ticket _____ x $30 each = $__________

Entry starts at 6 PM. Ticket includes bowl, soup and bread.

General Admission PLUS Ticket _____ x $50 each = $__________

Entry starts at 6 PM. Ticket includes bowl, soup, bread, bento and a beverage.

____ # Meat Bento _____ # Vegetarian Bento

VIP Admission Ticket _____ x $75 each = $__________

Entry starts at 5 PM. Ticket includes bowl, soup, bread, bento and a beverage.

____ # Meat Bento _____ # Vegetarian Bento

Make check payable to: Aloha Harvest.

Total Check Amount:_____________________ Check #:______________

First & Last Name: ______________________________________________________________

Address:_______________________________________________________________________

Phone:______________________ Email:___________________________________________

How do you want to receive your ticket(s)?

___ Email the ticket(s) to me.

___ Mail the ticket(s) to me.

___ I want to pick up my ticket(s) from Aloha Harvest. Please call me when ready.

…….

___ I want to pick up my ticket(s) from Dale at HPG. Please call me when ready.

NOTE: If you don’t receive your tickets by March 28, 2017, call Aloha Harvest 537-6945 immediately.

How did you hear about Empty Bowl 2017?

____ Printed Ad ____ Social Media ____ Family/Friend ____ Previous Empty Bowl Attendee

Mail to: Aloha Harvest, ATTN: Mele Latu

3599 Waialae Avenue #23

Honolulu, HI 96816

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(continued from pg. 1) given a “mystery basket” of local rescued food. Each chef created a special dish to show just what is possible. Straub saw all the possibilities, and how Aloha Harvest could help. “The most important part of this partnership is the ability for the Food and Nutrition team at Straub Medical Center to make a differ-ence in our community,” says Mar-garet Galas, who supervises Straub’s work with Aloha Harvest. “In addition, this program is in align-ment with Straub’s mission state-ment to ‘Create a Healthier Hawai`i’ and having a positive impact on po-pulation health.” Straub packages, dates and safely stores its excess food each night. It also partners with EcoFeed, which recycles food waste to pig farmers.

(continued from pg. 3) at Feeding Ha-waii Together. The connection clicked immediately, for more than the obvi-ous reasons. “This relationship we have is valua-ble,” Lorenz says. “We have the same mission and vision to help those in need. The drivers of the de-livery trucks are a joy to see every week. We all need to network togeth-er for each of us to have a resource that is valuable to those in need.” Aloha Harvest is available to help any 501(c)3 non-profit organization on O`ahu with a feeding program. Agen-cy applications are available online (alohaharvest.org) or by calling the office (537-6945).

Clients shopping at Feeding Hawaii Together. Photo by Feeding Hawaii Together.

“The best part of our connection with Aloha Harvest is having a venue and partner to positively impact the local community,” Galas adds. “Our reward is to know that our business is being socially re-sponsible towards sustainability and ‘making a difference’ in others’ lives.” Straub Medical Center is one of more than 300 participating donors who have provided some 2 million pounds of food to Aloha Harvest in 2016. Pali Momi Medical Center and Kapi`olani Medical Center are also donating their excess foods to Aloha Harvest.

If you shop on Amazon this is a simple way of giving back, at absolutely no cost to you! The Amazon Smile Foundation donates 0.5% of the your purchases to Aloha Harvest. Please select us as your charity of choice.

Other Ways to

Give

Donate your vehicle to Kokua in Kind, LLC and choose Aloha Harvest as your charity of choice. They accept most cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles or boats. Visit www.kokuainkind.com or call 808-834-6603.

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FOLLOW US: @alohaharvest

3660 On The Rise | Aiea High School | A Catered Experience | ABC Stores | Acosta Foodservice | AFC Sushi | Airport Honolulu Hotel | Alicia

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Inc. | Gary Toyama | Glenda King | Glenn & Karen Hamada | Glenn Oshiro | Grace Lo | Gregg Isara | Gregory Traynor | Hans Bertram-

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Electric Industries | Helene "Sam" Shenkus | Henry Kitagawa | Herbert & Karen Kitazaki | Hoala School | Honolulu Professionals Foundation |

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Foundation | James & Judy Chun | Jan Reichederfer | Janice Fukuda | Janis Reischmann | Jeffrey Dobrinksy | Jim Cremins | Joanna Kawamoto

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Karen Honma | Karen Oshiro | Katherine Pahnka | Kenneth & Diane Tokuno | Kenneth Nakamura | Kevin Masuda | Kristine Hachadourian |

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Tomihama | Lori Jansen | Lorinda Cheng | Maranatha Christian | Mary Kunihiro | Matsuko Ho | Mei Chun | Merle Miura | Michael Schuster &

Gayle Goodman | Nancy & Errol Rubin | Nancy Miura | Nelson Kwon | Our Lady of Good Counsel | Our Lady of the Mount | PACBLU | Panda

Express | Paul Fukunaga | Philip & Gerry Ching and Kevin Nakamura | ProService Hawaii | Renee Kaneda | River of Life Mission | Robert

Sumida | Robin Uyeshiro & Donna Leong | Rosita Chang | Royal & Aurora Fruehling | Melvin & Sandy Chang | Sanford & Frances Murata |

Seto Foundation | Shari Yoshinaga | Sharon Spear | Sheila Cyboron | Sidney Stern Memorial | Spokane Soccer Team | St. Christopher

Episcopal Church | St. John's Outreach | St. Philomena Church | St. Pius X Church | Stanley & Lorraine Luke | Steve Goo | Straub Medical

Center | Summer Kaiawe | Susan Kaya | Susan Moye | Sutter Health | Teresa Vast | Terry & Katherine Thomason | Theresa Janowicz | TJ Maxx

Foundation | Uncle Clay's House of Pure Aloha | Valentine Peroff, Jr. | Walmart Foundation | Walter Kuwasaki | Watanabe Ing LLP | Wayne

Shiohira | Whole Foods Kahala | Yee Hop Realty Limited

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Big Mahalo to our 2016 Donors

Together we rescued 2.2 million pounds of food to help feed 52,000 people each month

3599 Waialae Avenue #23

Honolulu, Hawaii 96816

Rescuing Food to Feed Hawaii’s Hungry

NonProfit Org.

US Postage

PAID

Honolulu, HI

Permit No. 1474

18 million pounds of food has been rescued

since Aloha Harvest began in 1999!

In 2016 over 2.2 million pounds of

food was rescued.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!