 Welcome. I'm Peter Rothschild. I'm your host on Hawaii's Volunteer Champions program here on ThinkTechHawaii.com. A program where we talk about volunteers. You probably figured that out. And we ask volunteers, why do they do what they do? Why do they give up their most precious resources, which are time and effort, to work for some cause or other, and we'll find out a little bit more about the causes that they work for. So today, before we begin, this is the second show we've recorded since the tragedy on Maui. We're continuing to get news of deaths and dislocations, missing people. It's a devastation that was unimaginable. And our hearts go out to those people who have survived and who are struggling now. We know there are many, many of them. And we also know that there are many, many volunteers who are working round the clock, donating money, of course, but also donating time and effort and possessions. So having said that, let's jump right in. We are guests today from our kupuna, which is an organization, our kupuna.com. Hasina, Aloha, welcome. Aloha. So you are a volunteer. And so let's just start out. What do you do for our kupuna? So currently, I have volunteered to help kupuna in the community that have, I believe they have various needs that kupuna I'm volunteering with. I pretty much do a little bit of shopping for her and bring her groceries and things she might need because she is unable to do that herself. This kupuna that I currently volunteer with, she is someone that I've just met recently. So I've just been filling in for a volunteer that I believe had to move to the mainland. And so now hopefully I'll be helping her and maybe once a week, once every two weeks, bringing her what she needs. Okay. And how did you get started doing this? So before I started with our kupuna, there was another lady that I was helping in the community and I had a relationship with her probably for about four or five years where I was doing something similar, seeing her once a week and helping her with groceries or picking up medications or with her, I would also take her to doctor's appointments and things like that. She passed away. She was in her 90s. And so I wanted to continue and our kupuna, I reached out to them and asked them if I could help somebody else in the community. Well, that's terrific. So let's talk a little bit more about what's involved in helping somebody in that situation. How does it work? How do you find out what they need, all that kind of thing? Sure. So in both cases, it's pretty straightforward. They either call me or text me and give me a list of things that they need. And I try to do the best and get everything exactly what they want or desire. That means going to different places. I always try to keep their budget in mind. So I will go to Costco to try to save them a little bit of money here and there. So it's fairly straightforward because they're just sending your list. And how many hours a week or a month would you say you devote to this activity? So it's the needs of the kupuna that I've been involved with. I'd say it's maybe two hours per visit. I'd say that involves doing the shopping and then the travel and then spending a little time and talking story when you're visiting. Full disclosure, I'm also a volunteer for our kupuna. So I've had, I think, three or four. Kevin probably has a list somewhere of different kupuna and each one is a little different, obviously. Some are very frankly kind of very lonely and really want to know what I'm talking. Do you have that experience too? Yes, I've had that experience. And the woman I was volunteering for earlier, I mean, we really did have quite a long relationship and she didn't have any cup. So it really became sort of like a family member. I was constantly thinking about her, almost like a grandmother figure where if something was happening, if a tropical storm was coming, I always was thinking about, is she going to be okay? Do we need to get her any supplies? It was such a rewarding relationship for both of us, really. But yes, I mean, the talking story and visiting was a huge part of it. It wasn't just dropping off some goods and then heading home. Of course, the first one you were dealing with was really a personal friend who you started to help, which is a little bit different than when our kupuna links you with somebody who you've never met. Oh, right. No, she was actually through. It wasn't through our kupuna, but it was through another volunteer organization. I had never met her. I see. So it really was a new relationship. And so far, you've had these two different people that you've helped. Is that it? Very good. So is there, I guess, the questions, why do you do it? Obviously, you want to help, but what do you get out of there? What does this do for you? Sure. So when I began, I was thinking to myself, I really wanted to use something for the community. I feel when people volunteer, they are generally going something with something that's deeply personal to them. So whether that's something in the environment or working with children. For me, with kupuna, I was lucky enough to have lived with my grandmother my whole life. She was incredibly dear to me and my brothers. And as she aged, she was surrounded by all of us. And we would just take care of her, anything that she needed. She was surrounded by family. So when I go out in the community and I see kupuna that I just sort of feel they could use help, it just kind of tugged on my heart strength. So I thought maybe their family has moved to the mainland. Maybe they don't have family. And then they could use assistance. So for me, it was always like, we were there for my grandma, but I was just thinking, oh, there's so many kupuna that don't have that luxury to be surrounded by family or have a big network. So that was what drove me to go this volunteer route. Okay. And how did you find out about our kupuna? So I'm sorry. Do you remember? Yes, it was they began, I believe during the pandemic when it was a vulnerable population. And so they wanted to assist and help bring groceries to kupuna so that they didn't have to necessarily expose themselves to the virus. And so that, I believe at that time, I saw advertisements for, I can't remember the exact detail of how, but yeah. Okay, Keva, let's say let's talk to you a little bit. You're the program director for our kupuna. And tell us a little more. I didn't got it started, but how did, how did our kupuna begin? It's surely recent mention, isn't it? Thank you, Peter. It's great to be here. Yes. And Hissina, you're correct. Our kupuna started in March of 2020 in response to the pandemic actually. Our founder, Gabe Ami, was able to shop for his own very elderly father, but realized there are so many other kupuna on the island who don't have a whanau who can help them. At the same time, he was hearing about folks in the community who wanted to help out in some way, but didn't know how. A lot of folks were laid off or had time. And so he sort of set up just a database so that we can track folks in the community who want to help with kupuna, the community who need the help. And that's more or less how we got started. We thought we'd only be open during the pandemic, but as time progressed and vaccinations became more widely available, some kupuna were able to comfortably shop for themselves and graduate. And those who remained were those we realized who really need this help still to this day. They're homebound. They're low income. They can't afford delivery service or don't know how to do something like that with just a landline. And they don't have family or others who can help them. And so they really do need help. Just as Hissina said, just getting their basics and their essentials. Yeah. I think until you really think about it, you don't realize if those of us who can do it can go shopping, you drive, you get out of a car, you push the cart around for 30, 40 minutes. You load stuff in the car, but that's really a big undertaking for somebody that's that's in firm and almost anyway. Absolutely. And we're finding so many of these kupuna who may be eligible for insurance provided care and support, but there's a massive shortage of those sorts of workers on the island. The pace is not good enough for them to be here. And so we're sort of serving the folks in that gap who may or may not be eligible, but are unable to even, even if they could use public transportation to get to a grocery store, they're in firm to the point where they can't carry their own groceries or make it very far on their own. Yeah. That's, that's been my experience. The people I worked with couldn't really get to the store. If they could get to the store, they couldn't spend an hour on their feet, even leaning on a shopping cart, much less deal with the bags or anything else going out. So what's the size or volume or how is after only a couple of after a year and a half really, or two years, how big is our kupuna? Yeah. So our kupuna has been operating for actually almost three and a half years. Okay. And we've served about 550 kupuna to date. That statewide that includes Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Big Island and Molokai. Today we're about 150 kupuna, 130. And the biggest program is of course the delivery program, like what Peter Yu and Yuhesina are both helping with. And you folks have both been with us for several years, which is just amazing. It's incredible that we have so many volunteers who've stuck around, even if they've taken a break from illness or vacation or whatnot and then tried to come back. It's been incredible that we've had so many returning volunteers. It's just, it's just so amazing. And so the volunteers, the kupuna that we serve, it's mostly through the delivery program, but over time we also realized that a lot of these homebound seniors don't have friends or others that they can socialize within the community. So we developed some socialization programs as well. They're much smaller, but we can match a kupuna with a phone buddy or with a high school student who can be their pen pal and they can find other ways to socialize in the community, even if they're stuck at home. I wasn't even aware of that. That's terrific. Because as I said, I think my experience is very often there's a loneliness factor that even goes further than the shopping factor. So that's terrific. Do you have any sense of what the need is? How many people out there who might need help if only we could find them and if only we could find the volunteers to help them? Absolutely. The need is definitely still great. We find most common and biggest need to be in major places like Honolulu. Sort of, in major cities like Honolulu is where we see a lot of that low income senior year housing. So there's always a need there. We always need new volunteers because folks are moving and getting busy and things like that. So that's always a place of need. We also seem to find great need in rural areas and it could be Kiheon Maui or it could be gosh, Pahoa, big parts of the big island where there's just not a lot of services. So we are still getting referrals. Over time, we developed a referral policy as a way of ensuring that we're supporting the Kapuna who are most in need but also ensuring that each Kapuna in our program has an advocate who's there to support them with the needs beyond what we can do. We recognize our own limitations and just we're here to serve in the ways we serve but having collaborations and partnerships in the greater community with other service organizations helps ensure that the Kapuna are getting other needs met whether they need help with laundry or cooking or rides to medical appointments. And so we want to ensure that each Kapuna has that referring agent who's also their advocate. And so we're getting referrals for these Kapunas in these more rural parts of the island where we're struggling also to find volunteers. The need is going to continue to be there for sure. And who pays for all this? Obviously, a senior and I are volunteers. We don't cost much but how's this being financed? We've got a fairly big behind-the-scenes infrastructure and website and all that sort of thing and units got to be paid for. How does that work? We're still a small non-profit after three and a half years but primarily our funding has been supported through local grants through Hawaii. We've had some larger partnerships with the Hawaii Public Health Institute. They're known as Hi-Fi Co-Oquile and they've been incredibly supportive of our efforts. And so we've had multiple grants and contracts with them. Some of it's through sort of federal funds through the administration through Community Living. We're also looking into sort of larger and longer term funding strategies like billing with Medicaid and things like that. Those are just, they take a lot longer to get rolling. But even private donations have helped little bits here and there but definitely these Hawaii grants have been very supportive. And I know on your website there is a page of supporters and people can go and see what kind of organizations are supporting you and that's a pretty prestigious list, if I may say, giving everybody a feeling I think of comfort in working with an organization that they probably never earned. Thank you Peter. I appreciate that. We've been very fortunate to have support from large organizations, small organizations, local companies like Hawaii Electric, you know, banks and foundations have all been supportive. So it's been just incredible across the board. Oh, that's good. Hasina, coming back to you for a bit here, it sounds like you're, you do a lot of good without committing a huge amount of time on a weekly or monthly basis. Is that fair to say? I would say yes. I believe it's incredibly helpful to the people that were, you know, the Kapuna that were servicing. The time investment is just, it's really minimal so far with the Kapuna I volunteered with. It hasn't been something that requires a lot of juggling my personal life. I don't have children so I don't have a lot of school drop-offs and after school activities etc. So I've got time to get to members of the community. That's terrific. But on the other hand, you know, many organizations, if you're a volunteer, they give you a lot of stuff. They have events for you and they, you know, I work with one organization that has a big volunteer picnic once a year and all kinds of things like that. We're not getting very much of that, are we? Right. I can only speak for myself, but I don't need the, I don't need the stuff. And you need, I mean, with any cause and just sort of need the boots on the ground, right? You're going to have those events that are like the, I don't know, the make-a-wish gala is where you get the, you're getting the donations, right? Like you need to put on those events for the drives to get the support, especially financial support. But then, you know, we're just sort of the foot soldiers, right? And I'm totally fine with that. That suits my personality much more than saying that like social aspect or that like the, the parties or the gala's are. I hear you. I got it. That's great. But it is interesting to me. Some people love to do volunteer work, but very frankly, they get a lot of ego satisfaction out of it and a lot of, you know, show face and that's great. Nothing wrong with that. But there are people who are, you know, in some ways the highest form of charity is the anonymous kind and the kind that isn't being done for the glory and, you know, both good, but there are different ways of approaching charitable work. Right. And I mean, you need them both. Maybe that's something that Keva can talk about is, I mean, everybody plays a role in the organization. Okay, Keva, maybe you could talk about that. What, you know, this is not a kind of organization that has, you know, big giveaways of stuff for their volunteers. Some organizations need to do that and some seem to be able to get by on the goodwill of people. How do you see that? Absolutely. You know, this actually almost brings me to tears just thinking about it, because for the past three plus years, I've often thought, how can I show gratitude to our volunteers? Because you're right, you are the boots on the ground. You see so much more than we ever do. We operate entirely remotely. And I have met only one kupuna that I have, you know, shopped for myself, but there are so many volunteers on the ground across the entire state who are doing this work and you don't get recognized. We don't do big things and, you know, we aren't very flashy in part to protect the population that we're serving. We, you know, we maintain a lot of anonymity to protect these kupuna. But I'm always wondering, how can we just like shower volunteers with gratitude? Because you were doing this, it is, you know, it is sort of thankless work in the sense that you were just giving and giving and you show up every week, every other week. And our volunteers are just there and they're providing such an incredible need that I think is just beyond just something nice like picking up trash on the beach. I am an environmentalist myself, so I'm not knocking. I think that's incredible work. I really do. And yet for a kupuna to rely on someone to get their food and their medication regularly is so incredible. Whenever I have a kupuna calling to say, what happened to my volunteer? I need my food. It breaks my heart. And so to just see these volunteers show up regularly, you thanklessly, it is an incredible service. And I think you're right, Peter. It's something that perhaps goes unnoticed. It's not for the ego driven for sure. It really is just beautiful that people want to continue doing this. And so the thanks isn't necessarily coming from the organization itself, but I mean, the kupuna are so thankful for just you arriving. Right. I mean, it's just, I mean, my experience has been almost that their faces light up and and they're just, yeah. So that's really the thanks, at least that's how I feel about it. So it is just so rewarding, just the relationships that you're forming with people in the community. That's great. So you don't need a t-shirt with the arc logo on it. You don't need any any bags. You don't need to need paraphernalia. You don't need to go to a big event once or twice a year. You get it at the doorway when you bring that stuff to people that need it. Right. That's my experience. But say if there's somebody who is really gets energized about putting on a large event where you could foster relationships with donors or, you know, sort of a business mingling kind of scenario, then that is great because you need that. Right. And that can be rewarding to that volunteer. But yeah. Nothing wrong with that. It's just kind of approaches to things and where people get there, you know, get the will to continue to give time and effort and in many cases money. So that's terrific. Let me ask you a harder question if I could. Is there anything you would change based on your experience so far? Anything you would, you know, Kevin won't listen. She'll ignore you for a month. If you could, had your ways, I wish they did this or wish they did that. Is there anything in that category? To be totally honest, I do not have feedback of that nature. I have had really positive experiences with the entire our team. They're very responsive. And if I have any concerns, then they are there to listen. It's been it's been really great. Well, that's a great recommendation. Now, Kevin can come back into the conversation. And open to feedback. So we absolutely always welcome feedback for if I had if I had some, I would definitely give it. I'm just it's such a great job that you guys are doing it. And we're so grateful. You know, our Kapuna are so grateful to have organizations like this out there to couple them with people who have time to give. That's great. Yeah, Kevin. Just so I'm clear, how do Kapuna or homebound people, how do they find you? That's probably going to be one of the bigger challenges because you're not a well known organization. So we're posted on various platforms like the Aloha United Way. They know about us. So when Kapuna call into some platform like that, where they're just saying, I need help, where can I get it? They give out our number. So some Kapuna know us through that. Pardon me. Various referring agents, Kaiser, Permanente, St. Francis, there are different organizations throughout the state that we try to make ourselves known in front of. And so their referring agents can also refer their clients to us. That's, you know, as I mentioned, we need referrals anyway. So a lot of folks are sent to us through that as well. You know, Kapuna can fight us just by learning about us through hospitals. Sometimes a hospital discharge social worker will also be sending clients our way. Yep. And what about volunteers? I found out through, Frank, I retired from Hawaiian Electric about a year and a half ago. And I found out through what used to be called a company nurse, but is now that kind of company health and wellness coordinator. And she puts out a weekly newsletter and then it said, here's this organization. They're looking for volunteers to deliver, deliver groceries, which always seem more appealing to me than meals on wheels, which is a different similar, but different kind of organization. How do volunteers find you normally? I think that depends too. We have definitely a different times dispatched, you know, student volunteers, student interns, or just any volunteers who want to help out to post up flyers around their own town. Radio PSAs have definitely gone out. So when volunteers do hear about us, we're on also some volunteer websites like Kanu Hawaii or Hands on Maui. So when volunteers do find us, then they can find our website, dig around, and then they'll give us a call and inquire with what they want to know about us. But it's really easy for them to sign up on our website, arcapuna.com. All we ask for is the volunteers basic information plus a copy of their driver's license and driver's insurance. We run the background check ourselves and then we can do a brief orientation to get them going. Okay, arcapuna, one word, arcapuna.com is really the key to the kingdom here, right? That's right. Okay. Do you, I'm assuming the answer is yes, but do you need more volunteers right now? We always need volunteers, like I mentioned, especially in certain areas, definitely the rural parts of most islands, and then Honolulu proper itself is where we definitely most need volunteers, or if folks live in other parts of the islands but are willing to travel to those parts of the island, that's always the most helpful for sure. Yeah, you've always been very good about finding people very close to where I live, which happens to be near downtown. And I guess I would be well considered driving to remote parts of the island, but remote for me. But the fact that I don't have to, and that she takes a few hours a week or a month, makes it really attractive to do so much good in relatively short amount of time. And very frankly, I deal with my own shopping at the same time. So, you know, it's got to go win-win. I think that's one of the great things about the way you handle things. Oh, good. Our goal is to make it as sustainable as possible for volunteers to want to continue to sort of huneye or adopt a kapuna and then continue helping them. So thank you both for what you have done for the past several years and what you continue to do today to help your kapuna. All right. Well, I think I want to thank you both both for what you do and for spending a little time with us. I hope some of my regular, both of my regular listeners here will decide to volunteer or will tell other people to volunteer. It really is about as painless as you can get, especially if you enjoy going to the grocery store. It's terrific. And it really does meet a need that I don't think many of us think about. The people who can't get out, obviously, are just about invisible to us. They are, you know, in our line of view most of the time. So there is an invincible population there that needs help and is grateful for it. So thank you both and the other volunteers who are working with our kapuna and we wish you all the best. We're going to close as we often do in a with a thought from Maya Angelou this week about, you know, what it means to live life. And she basically says, you can't go through life with a catcher's mitt on, on both hands because you've got to have the ability to throw something back. And I think Hasina is and all the other volunteers and Kevin or devotion to this job are doing exactly that. So we'll be back in a couple of weeks with more volunteers. I encourage you to check out the website. You'll see it's a very reputable organization in case just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it isn't a, you know, modified organization doing good work 501 seat three. And thank you both again for this very interesting Hasina.