 Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmers Series where we talk to Hawai'i's farmers, foodies, and also those that are working to help make Hawai'i's local food system that much better. I'm your co-host, Matt Johnson, here with Justina Spiritu, and as always, we're here Thursdays at 4 p.m. So this week we have a slightly different special guest that Justina is going to introduce. They're all special. But yeah, we're lucky today to have Charlie Lorenz, the Executive Director of Feeding Hawai'i Together. Like Matt said, we have a lot of chefs, we have farmers, we have different business operators, and an important issue we haven't touched upon or talked about is what about the folks that don't have access to food, what about the resources in our community that are providing those services, as well as where do some of our food go if it doesn't get bought in the store or excess. And so a good example of one of those organizations is FeedingHawaiiTogether.org. And it's especially important recently, they have lost the lease on their land, so they're looking for some new space. So kind of putting it out there, looking for about 10,000 square feet. So thank you, Charlie, for coming on. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Hi, everybody. So yeah, why don't we start with kind of explaining what is the service you guys are providing? Okay. What we do, what we provide is we provide food up to 3 million pounds of food a year, perishable and non-perishable, and we also provide furniture, dishes, appliances, everything that can go into a household. So if there's something like a desk or something like that, we usually don't take that because the people that we're dealing with are mostly in poverty level and they don't really need a desk because they're really cramped anyway. So what we do is we collect all that stuff, the food and everything and the household goods, and then from there, we give it all away. So there's no money exchanged there. We have a number of different non-profit organizations that come in because we have so many people there, like up to 400. Sometimes we actually realize that when we were doing an audit that there was one day that we had 500 people come and we get 10 to 25, sometimes more new clients a day. And they're hungry. This is not, people think it's only homeless and it's not only homeless. It's in fact, our stats show that it's less than 10% homeless. And we're right in Coqqocco and that's where there's a lot of affordable housing, and I call it so-called affordable housing because it really isn't affordable. But we're making it affordable. We're keeping them from going homeless and they can come and they can shop once a week. They actually shop at the grocery with the shopping cart and they'll go through the pantry and they pick out what they want and what they don't want and everything, you know. And our goal is to fill their refrigerators, their freezers and their cupboards with all the food that we can provide for them. And it's been a long journey. Our landlord was really good to us, very, very good to us and he reduced the price so much because he liked what we were doing. And so, yeah, that's my wife. So we're the co-founders of Feeding Hawaii together and it's just been a good ride. Fifteen years we've been in this building and it's the perfect building. This is just right off of Queen Street, the Queen and what's the street it's on? It's on Kea'avi. Kea'avi Street, okay. It's between Queen and Hale Koela on Kea'avi Street right in the middle of it. Yeah. Charlie, talk a little bit about the, I guess the clientele that you're serving. Who are the people coming and getting food and other materials from you guys and what does that process look like? You were showing us earlier, talking about some of the USD stats, kind of the poverty line levels that you're working with. What are the, I guess, the requirements for eligibility and the kind of people that you're working with? Okay. We have, let me show you this right here, I don't see, probably can't see it. Anyway. We'll just describe it to them. Okay. So we're governed by USDA standards and Hawaii Food Bank too, but mostly USDA standards. And USDA standards has a poverty level and it's a sliding scale on the poverty level. So it's like if a person comes in that earns less than $24,000 a year, we'll let them shop because they're in poverty level. And if the sliding scale goes all the way down to eight persons, eight persons in a household that can earn $78,000, well, just say $79,000 rounded up, $79,000, that's poverty level. That's a lot of people to feed and provide services for, you know, beds and everything. You know, we had this person one time, this guy called me up and he was wanting to give us beds. And so he wanted to give us a thousand beds. Wow. Yeah. So I said, I can't take a thousand beds, I'm pretty crazy or something, you know. We do food mostly. Yeah. And he said, well, you know, we model in a hotel, in a nice bed, and he would give you, you know, maybe 25 to 30 years of time and I said, well, I don't know if that's going to work because it's still a lot of beds, you know. So he talked me into taking 12, I took 12 beds, and, you know, because the community there, seeing Kakako and all of the low-income housing, they talk about everything like, oh, they've got hamburger now, they've got pork and beans and they've got whatever, you know, all the good stuff that they like, you know, and then we get bombarded, you know. So here we are with these beds, and all of a sudden, our phone is just ringing off the hook with the clients. Oh, wow. Do you have beds? Do you have beds? Do you have beds? You've got a hotel bed, you know. Lots of times we get beds, but they're not too, you know, too good, you know. We make sure there's no bed bugs and stuff, but they're still just, you know, kind of on the margin. Right. So these were really choice beds, and to make a long story short, we gave away a thousand beds. Wow. Wow. And it went like that. Incredible. It was incredible. Exactly. And we don't deliver furniture. They have to take it. They have to come and take it. So this woman that lives in Pobonani, she has just been shopping there for a long time. So she comes in, she tells me, she goes, you know, what she did was she went and got the security guards to carry the bed for her in the building. Oh, okay. She said, I don't have a bed, can you guys, I didn't even know she didn't have a bed. Right. You know. So she was 80 years old. Oh, wow. And for 10 years, from 70 to 80, she didn't have a bed. Wow. How many beds go into landfills every week? Every week. How many beds? I guess that's kind of an interesting concept too, like a group like Reuse Hawaii, right? Yes. Also in the Kakaoka area. Reuse Hawaii, yes. And you guys are kind of doing that. I mean, you're doing the very similar thing where you're trying to reuse food and also other materials that people need. So it's a neat kind of combination of services. And yeah, we talk about all these issues about too much stuff going into landfills. And it's really just kind of like this matchmaking of what you guys are doing. And you're telling us over the break, where you guys are a little bit different than some of the other, I guess, food establishments where you guys are on the, you're literally on the street and people are coming, waiting in line. And they're shopping inside the pantry and then they're going home with stuff. So you guys are kind of like that final, I guess the last mile of how the product actually gets to the people that need it. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't give away food that's been expired. So it's all good stuff. There's sometimes we get a little bit marginal on the produce, but other than that, it's all good food. I mean, we get food that's just amazing, because we're on an island. And so sometimes people get the wrong shipment, you know, I didn't want to buy a Pepsi. I wanted Pepsi and they call it. They don't have like 10 other stores to distribute it out to. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, this woman right there, that is, she's an amazing woman. I mean, she can barely stand up straight. She's really bent over more than, you know, the cart she's hanging onto to try to stay up a little bit straighter. She comes every week, every week, and she's always so happy. I mean, these people are just happy. Once in a while, we get some testy people, you know, but we take care of them. And, you know, we try to make sure that the testy people don't ruin everybody's day. You know, the amazing thing is, you know, human nature, you know, you could have we could have 500 people or 400 people a day. And we're going to take, we're going to take a break and then we'll get right back. All right. Hello. My name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show. I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life. Join me. Aloha. My name is John Wahee. And I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today, served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you. And I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Aloha and welcome back to Hawaii Food and Farmers series. I'm your co-host, Justine Espiritu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. Today's guest is Charlie Lorenz from FeedingHawaiiTogether.org. So we spent the past 15 minutes kind of talking about the services you provide and you were talking about some of the stories with some of the particular clients that come. So if you want to finish. Yeah. So, so, you know, what happens a lot of times, you know, you have like 400 shoppers a day or something like that. And, you know, 399 are so grateful and they're just like really excited and so happy and everything. But human nature is like one person to get that just just doesn't appreciate it or, or, you know, I don't know how. Or has higher expectations. Yeah. How come we don't have this? Yeah, yeah. And so you get those people everywhere. Yeah, yeah. It just ruins their day. I mean, it's just like, it's like, I'm like, you know, 399 people are thanking you and you're going to focus on the one that gets negative, you know, and a good example was this this person, I won't say his name, but he's homeless and he came in about three or four times and then we had to ban him because because he's just foul mouth and he's just pushing people and doing you know, and it's just it was just wasn't working, you know, so so I saw him on the side of the road one day and and I don't know why he's street. So I pull up, I jump out of my car and I go up to him and I knew him by name and I asked him, I said, you know, you know, are you hungry? Do you need food? And he goes, yeah, but, but you guys don't give me any. I said, no, we will give you food. I said, can you say please? And he says, please, I said, can you say thank you? He said, thank you. And, and I said, if you just come to the pantry and just say, please and thank you, we will give you a lot of food. Can you do that? And he said, OK. And he came in the next day. Please and thank you, please and thank you. Nice. It was amazing. And then, you know, this guy was just like, I mean, you see him all over town and he's just he's got a shirt on, got a shirt off and he's just like talking to himself and everything. And then, you know, after about three months, I had to go go into my wife's office to get to pull her out because he was he was having a normal conversation with a girl. OK. A normal conversation. Look, what's going on? It's like he's all grown up. Yeah, it was amazing. And then sometimes he's he, you know, our volunteers give him money for for washing the cars or waxing the cars. So he's very money, you know. So it kind of became part of the community. That's great. Yeah, yeah, it is great. He's he's in there helping now and everything. Yeah, it's really cool. And then so really quickly before we kind of go into what it would would mean if you lose your space and don't find another space. What other kind of partnerships you have at your space that you let others, because since you kind of mentioned people kind of wait their turn, they're in that kind of holding area for a while. And so if you could talk a little bit about the opportunity you've given to other nonprofits and other service providers for access. One of the biggest ones is is, of course, we don't we have no money exchange at all. I think I said that already. And so when they come in as a service provider, they cannot charge anything if they charge anything, then it's off. So but we have Helping Hands Hawaii that comes in is helping people get food stamps. And unfortunately, the welfare offices are overwhelmed. And a lot of times when people come in, they make an appointment and they come in and they fill out their form. And a lot of them can't fill out the forms accurately. And we noticed that when we're when we're get when they're filling out our forms, you know. And so so they get a lot of grant money for food stamps and and sometimes first months rent and deposit and things like that. If if somebody is homeless and has a proven track record that they've been working for so many hours or so many weeks. And so and those grants are sporadic. But that and then Blue Jay cell phones, you know, oh, yeah, they they provide a service where it's just an absolutely free phone. Well, no, no money exchanged at all. And I think it's about eight hundred eight hundred minutes a month. And and with that, it happened with what goes on. And yeah, there they are right there. So that's pretty cool. So so so they'll they'll promote to provide the service. And eight hundred minutes a month. And if for texting and calling. And if if it goes over eight hundred minutes, it shuts down. Oh, good. And then at the first of the month, the next month, it kicks back in. So there's no way to get charged. And then you said kind of one of the motivations behind that is is is a way to be contacted when they're applying for jobs or. Or exactly exactly. And then even mailboxes. So so there's a kind of key up in kind of key. There's a place I forget the name of the organization right now. So in my mind that that provides mailboxes. OK, so we all we're all networking. And then IHS comes in to to give them employment. And that's the Institute for Human Services. Yes, yes, them. And then and then also. Um. I think that legal legal age legal age legal age comes in and you know, people can you know, we make announcements whenever there's somebody new and the clients don't know about them. We make announcements and tell them that we can do it. And then we have a guy, Michael, that comes in and he he sees if their medical is up to speed and stuff like that. And so within this network, are you guys right now the only ones that have that space to kind of make this a central location where where everyone can kind of come together and reach these people at the same time? Unfortunately, you know, there's it's hard to get the space. And and without the space, then, you know, they just can't do it. But it's not just the space. It's also the amount of people. So when you when you get a big crowd that's sitting there waiting to come in, yeah, they're waiting to come in. Now, this is the outside. Wow. Going up to the going up to the building now. And if you have a shot of the inside where they're waiting. No, no, no, not that it's not that inside. That's good, though. But there is the inside of where they're all sitting down. So we have a place where they're all sitting down. And that's where all the tables are and all that. So I mean, really, your footprint is I mean, you're taking over a block. I mean, you have the building right now. Your end is about 10,000 square feet. And then you have that entire. No, it's it's it's. It's it's almost 20,000 or 20,000. Yeah, so we're going to we're going to cut down. I know that. So yeah, why don't you talk about like, what are you? So unfortunately, you're losing the lease to where you are now. Yeah, landlord's been great, but just other things have happened. So you need to move on. What what are you looking for? What's the ideal situation for you? Ideal situation would be 10,000 minimum, 10,000 minimum and have a 10,000 square foot building, 10,000 square foot building and have a place where we could we could have people staged, you know, like sitting in chairs out of the sun and out of the rain, which we have now and they get water and they can go in and out of the building, use a restroom and everything like that. It's almost like an outside owning type area. Yeah, yeah. And you know, right now we have three loading docks. It's covered loading docks. So so that works really well. It's it's great. And then once they get in there, you know, then they can shop and do the whole thing. But we're losing the building and the landlord has been so good to us, you know, so we're not fighting them at all. But we're just we're just looking for something that would be affordable and he made it so affordable. He spoiled us for 15 years. You know, it was father, son and and the wife. And they don't want to be known. Right. Yeah. So it's it's it's really good. So we're looking for something like that that that could, you know, I hope we get it because if we don't get it, if we don't get it, if we don't get a place that we can move to and set up the refrigerators and freezers and the pallet shelves and the scales and all the computers and everything that we need to do this operation with most of this food is going to be going in landfills. Right. Well, there's like two issues here. The number of people that are going to go hungry. And like you said, right now, you're giving them the option to use their money for rent instead of food and medicine. Yeah. It's some of these people, they don't even have enough money to pay for all their prescriptions. And, you know, when we really start talking to them sometimes, it's just it's just sad, you know, because these people are paying rent and we're calling it affordable housing. That is not right. It is not affordable. There is no way shape and form it's affordable. But we're helping them to stay in their houses, you know, and and and to to to get all their needs met. Right. Because and one of the things you mentioned is that you definitely want to stay in the Kakaako, Eberle area. And I'm curious how that works out with the kind of development that's that's going on if these kind of people are getting kind of brushed away from that. How do you? Well, that that's one factor that we might not see a reality to. So maybe evil evil, we've searched evil and they want a lot of money and it's it's it's just we might have to go further out. But the main thing if we go further out is that we have a bus line real close to us because without a bus line, you senior citizens only have to pay one fee. And multiple stops. No, only only one fee for the bus pass for the year. OK, for the whole year. They could ride the bus, you know, all day and all night. So that's an important factor. If you get a space that doesn't have that bus stop, you're going to lose some of your clientele in the sense of those people then don't. Well, it wouldn't be losing the clientele. Is that it's it's more that there's more people that's going to be starving and that that's that's the whole thing. You know, we can't we can't let them starve, you know, and you know, we had to close down one month because of termites and we had to show up some beams and stuff like that. And when they came back in after after we opened up again, it was like we were like they were telling us that they were eating cat food and dog food for the past. For this it was a five week month and the tube last week some crackers, cat food and dog food. And so if you guys stopped operations, there's not necessarily another organization that could take on that surplus. Basically everything you're getting will be because there's not that's the word enough. I mean, how many different organizations are there like you that are providing this service? Well, we had we did have an opening for Wahi Wa and we I called Hawaii Food Bank and Dr. Roxanne said, hey, we have an opening for food pantry in Wahi Wa. I mean, there is some space available. Yes. And she said Wahi Wa is saturated already. So they have service in the nation. Services providing. Oh, interesting. Yes. So we want to be where we're needed. Yeah. You know, so the people that we serve right now aren't going to hop on a bus and go to Wahi Wa. So I'm trying to make sure that we're going to be in a place that's needed and it has to have a bus stop. Sand Island, the buses don't run past, you know, I already said that. Well, not just to us off camera. You already said it. Oh, I did it. Yeah, we said that before. Oh, OK. OK. So Sand Island, you know, there's building spaces down there and they have platforms where we can put up a spring structure or something. We could probably do that. And if we just had land, vacant land, we could probably do a spring structure with grants and stuff like that. And, you know, it's so it's if if there is not a bus line going to where we end up, then a lot of people can't come. Is that like a conversation you could have with the city in terms of let's find a location and let's work together? Like, can you add this? That might work. That's a good idea. That might work. Yeah, yeah. Because once you turn the corner across Ke Lu Goon, there's some platforms and everything's been wiped off of them and they've got a few warehouses over there. For those work, I don't know. I think it's state. I don't know. We can work on that. Yeah. And then we would pass, you know, with the bridge and it's like, no way. I don't know how the people get out of there. You know, there's got the housing down there. There's no bus stop. So just, we're almost out of time. So I just kind of want to summarize what, I guess you guys are looking for. So it's about a 10,000 square foot building or more. Preferably in the Kakaako, Ivalet, Chinatown area. But also important that there is a bus stop nearby. Also, it needs to be, at a certain price point, needs to be affordable for you guys to be able to cover the costs. Is there anything else I'm missing? No. We looked at the Bolorama. Bolorama, where is that? That's closer to university. OK. And there's a lot of homeless at the university, even students. So they come to us too. So yeah, definitely a resource and a service that's important to keep. So good luck. And thanks for coming on to kind of share what you do. And hopefully this can perk some more interest. Awesome. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for letting me be good.