Hawaii Police Department officers partnered with The Food Basket Friday at the Costco in Kailua-Kona to collect much-needed food donations for the Big Island’s lone food bank.
For four hours, volunteers, police staff and community members worked to fill a Hawaii County police cruiser with donated and fresh groceries to help feed the island’s hungry during the second annual Fill A Cruiser Food Drive.
For Kona Officer Aaron Tanaka the day meant that members in the community who needed help the most would get enough food to eat.
“Especially now with the COVID pandemic, there’s been financial issues, housing issues. This is bringing the community together. It’s about helping your next door neighbors. Every dollar helps,” he said as customers went in and out of the big-box store offering up donations to the nonprofit food bank. “I also want to thank everyone for their donations so far. It’s been a great day.”
All in all, the effort resulted in some 3,178 pounds of fresh and nonperishable food donations, as well as $4,792 in cash contributions to support The Food Basket.
The Food Basket’s Executive Director Kristin Frost Albrecht said the food situation on island is dire with no shipments of food expected from the Emergency Food Assistance Program that provides about 50% of the food distributed by the nonprofit.
“We’re not getting any food from emergency food assistance programs this month due to supply chain issues, so we really need this,” she explained, adding that the situation will likely persist until 2023.
While the federal assistance is down, events like Fill a Cruiser help to fill the void.
“This day has been amazing,” she continued. “We’ve done this day once before. It’s really a beautiful thing for the police and Costco to do. We are so grateful to our donors for making a donation and ending hunger.”
Hawaii Police Department Kona Community Policing Officer Dwayne Sluss, in part, came up with the idea for the event last year as he saw the need for food assistance increase amid the pandemic.
In September 2021, the drive netted 4,053 pounds of food and $1,381.83 in donations for The Food Basket.
“It’s the Friday before a long weekend so we’ve got a lot of people coming in,” he said. “It was originally going to be a toy drive, but the concept of a food cruiser is a great concept — so whatever we can jam into the cruiser we do.”
Prior to the pandemic, The Food Basket served an average of 14,000 individuals per month.
During the pandemic, the number skyrocketed to 80,000-plus, though the number has gone down to roughly 50,000 individuals per month.
To donate to The Food Basket, visit hawaiifoodbasket.org. Donations can also be made at the nonprofit’s warehouses in Hilo and Kona.