(BIVN) – The Food Basket’s largest annual food drive was held this past weekend, in partnership with the National Association of Letter Carriers yearly “Stamp Out Hunger”.
The food drive happens across the United States every year in the month of May. This was the 33rd year that the Food Basket and National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) have collaborated on Hawaiʻi Island.
Video shared by event organizers showed busy scenes of food sorting at the Food Basket base of operations in Hilo on Saturday, May 9th. On average, this drive raises over 30,000 pounds of canned goods, rice, instant noodles, and other non-perishable food items on Hawaiʻi Island alone.
“We partner with the post office who gathers all the food into trucks from the different routes that they take,” explained Duryn Izumo, the Food Basket’s Managing Director. “They bring the food over here to our warehouse then unload. We have a bunch of different volunteers from various different groups who will unload everything into carts and then we take it back here and sort everything into categories and then once that is done we’ll weigh everything and put it into our system to get dispersed.”
Organizers say food drives like this one are critical on Hawaiʻi island, where 40% of residents are said to be experiencing food insecurity.
“Today’s food drive is important in my opinion because of the economy,” said Mary Pedro, Union President of Hilo Post Office. “It’s not getting any easier and there’s a lot of families in need, especially here in Hawaiʻi. This is one way we can give back to… help them out.”
“You never know when it’s going to happen to you,” said Ann Ebesuno, Food Basket Board Chair and a volunteer. “You may think today I’m well off, but tomorrow you may be in that line for food. So you never know, and we’re here for you.”
“No be shame, we are here to help you,” said Food Basket warehouse worker ,Fua Wilson. “That’s what we are here for. We are here to help.”
