Kilauea Community Center
Pictured: Megan Wong and Paulina Ann
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
“People are scared, they don’t have any income, they don’t know where their food is going to come from. We are trying to give a little relief and food to let them know that they're going to be fed.”
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
Can you give us a little bit of background on your organization, how you work together and what was happening pre COVID?
We grew up together on Kaua’i, and have had our paths tightly knit throughout our lives. Our kids are also best friends. After the April, 2018 floods on Kaua’i, we stepped up to be boots on the ground; first responders to people that had lost their homes and were isolated in Haena. Megan was in charge of volunteers and getting people help with their houses and I [Paulina] was feeding everybody, starting with making sandwiches for about a hundred people for the first couple days, which immediately went up to about 300 in two days. By the end of the week I was making a thousand lunch bags to pass out to people who were in need.
We work side by side together doing different things, but essentially just helping our community. So when this happened, we were like, “Hey, let's help,” especially our kupuna because they were locked up and couldn't go anywhere. Throughout we got to know a lot of the residents from Haena to Kilauea. We knew all of a lot of them from growing up here. But to really be able to like know them a little bit more personally was nice.
We started Adopt-a-kupuna COVID relief. We got some funding, personal donors that we knew gave us some money and that allowed us to buy the CSA boxes from the farms and then we just ran with it. At the beginning, we did about a hundred, and then it went to two hundred, and then we were doing 400 a day with the farm at Kilauea Ag Park. We are distributing the boxes and we also have pickup locations for the community.
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
What changes have you made in your business/lifestyle/platform to adapt to our current situation?
We haven't been paid. This is a hundred percent volunteer. Paulina and I got together, quickly named it the Adopt a Kupuna COVID-19 Community Relief and went through a nonprofit and the funding comes from private donors. We got about $30,000 in donations and teamed up with Yosha at the farm and realized that farmers needed to be supported and our kupuna preferred to have raw foods instead of cooked foods. So we teamed up with him supporting farmers across the Island. We purchased the boxes with the donations ran our funding through his nonprofit. When we started to run low on funding a USDA grant came through of $150,000 for six weeks. With this we are doing about 400 boxes a day, 2000 boxes a week.
What food system vulnerabilities have you seen exposed through this crisis?
Food security is a big one. People are scared, they don’t have any income, they don’t know where their food is going to come from. We are trying to give a little relief and food to let them know that they're going to be fed. To remind people of malama, if we take care of this land, the land will take care of us. The island once sustained a larger Hawaiian population than we have currently. So if we can remind people to farm, take care of the land, and remember how to gather, we will be okay. If we have the bare essentials; food, water, clothing, a roof over our head. The customer, the residents, are looking to support the local farmers. They have shifted their needs and wants within this crisis. They want to support the person that is their neighbor who is growing their food.
“We would hope that people are not going to assume everything is fine and stop supporting local agriculture.”
Are there things that are happening now that you would want to see remain in place?
Yes. If people continue to support their farmers. We would hope that people are not going to assume everything is fine and stop supporting local agriculture. Perhaps people will realize that it is more sustainable than to be dependent on the barges, which can be stopped. That we become more self sufficient and less reliant on the government for food to be delivered through food banks and pantries.
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
The report I was getting was that people are saying they haven't been to the store to go shopping. Many people were asking for eggs and would have preferred to purchase locally and forego Costco. The silver lining to this is that people are kind of being forced to become more self-sufficient.
What does it take to carry that system forward?
Yoshi is purchasing across the island, from 15 or 20 farmers. Ideally he would like to set up every month or every district to aggregate their own food and farm their own food so it's not all coming from the North shore. If we are able to better set up on the West side then they could aggregate their own food and sustain and take care of their community and us the same. Now that they know there's already a system in place, perhaps sustaining in would be easier. People aren’t spending money, aren’t going to the grocery store, so we are eating healthier and saving money. Because of this crisis, some people are eating 90% local, something that was harder to do one month ago, which is more convenient now.
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
“I think it is a wonderful lesson for all of us to be able to have this experience.”
How do you see this crisis being described in the history books of the future?
I think it is a wonderful lesson for all of us to be able to have this experience. Before this happened we couldn't really see an end in sight of how our environment would change here on Kauai and how we would be able to step out of the tourism dependent economy. Megan I both work in the tourism industry and our work is completely finished. It is nice to be able to see that we can make things work without having to rely on tourism.
I think COVID-19 has been a reset for our Island and our community. The stop of tourism in the way that is has. Everyone is slowing down because they don't have to be at a job. I think that it's been beautiful in that, that we are able to reset right now and decide how we want to move forward.
“I think COVID-19 has been a reset for our Island and our community.”
What can the community do to help?
What I see is a major communication gap and being able to go out into the community and let people know that this is so important. It is hard because even though we're reaching out to 400 residents a day, that's still not everyone.
Who are you inspired by right now in the community?
Well, Yoshi has inspired us because he's so innovative and he figures out ways around things. He jumped in and decided he was just going to purchase all this food from the farmers and figure out how to move it. He has been really inspiring.
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa
I'm inspired by all the volunteers, especially the ones who have lost their businesses and their income and have still shown up. They have really been an inspiration. People coming in with happy faces and just being so thankful and helpful. And I'm like, stimulus check. Did you? Yeah. I'm like, did you get unemployment now?
“I'm inspired by all the volunteers, especially the ones who have lost their businesses and their income and have still shown up.”
Once people knew what we were doing, several of them reached out to to help and actually thanked us. It was important to them that they felt needed. That is was such a blessing to go and deliver the food to kupuna. They were so happy they got to talk story from a distance with them and bring them such a joy. It gave them a purpose. They say that it brought them more joy than it did for the kupuna who was receiving. The gift of giving and blessing just went all the way around. It was such a win-win and a beautiful thing to witness.
“The gift of giving and blessing just went all the way around. It was such a win-win and a beautiful thing to witness.”
Amazing. Thank you so much for your time and for the amazing work that you're doing.
Pictured: Megan Wong and Paulina Ann
Photographer: Harneet Bajwa