 Welcome to today's Aloha United We Stand show and I am Carol Monly, your host for today and I'm very pleased to have as our special guest Gerald Shintaku from the Hawaii Food Bank. Welcome Gerald. Welcome. Oh thank you very much and happy holidays to you. Thank you. It is. It's a really important time I'm sure for the Food Bank. Sure is. It sure is. Yeah now how long have you been with the Food Bank? I know you're president. Yes I was fortunate to join the Food Bank on staff December 1st so I'm coming up on 11 months now. I was on the board for about 14 years prior to that in my previous career so I was on the board, watched all the good activities that you know was occurring at the Food Bank. I had a chance to retire from my previous position with Kraft Foods last August and I was retired and playing a lot of golf and relaxing and kind of getting a little bored and got the call from the Food Bank and when they asked me to join the Food Bank on staff. Yes well it's a really important organization for our community. Yes so tell us what's happening what's new at the Food Bank? Well there's always a lot of things going on Carol you know we we have to deal with about 287,000 people that have a need for our services or one of our partner agency services throughout the year. That's about one in five people in the state of Hawaii so there's a huge number of people that we serve. So is that on all islands? That's including all islands and children as well as children we have about 43,000 keiki and about 45,000 kupuna that are also serviced as part of that number so yeah we touch a lot of people you know with our services and what are your services? Well we primarily what we do at the Food Bank is we actually we receive donations of product and then some product we actually purchase then we warehouse it and we also check product that's being donated to make sure it's safe edible make sure it's not you know the cans aren't rusty or or leaking and any of that make sure it's safe to go back out. We inventory it inventory it and we work with about 225 agencies here in Oahu that actually come to us on a daily basis that comes to pick up food so we don't actually have the needy coming to our warehouse in Mapuna Puna but we have a great partnership with these agencies throughout the island of Oahu and Kauai that come to our location they either pick up food our top 20 our 20 largest agencies actually get a delivery from us depending on when they're servicing their needy people it could be once or twice a week it could be once a month it could be every two weeks just depends on how often they service their people these include food pantries and churches and rehabilitation groups so we deal with a lot of people that actually help us get the food the people that need the food. Right so you mentioned your partners so I know you're of course a member of Aloha United Way so are your partners also members of you know Aloha United Way? Most of them are yes absolutely they are you know Aloha United Way helps us in many ways you know one of the big ways is through the donor designated donations so you know it's a very popular program for people that are employed you know you take it right off the paycheck and they direct their monies to the food bank we also have they also allocate some of their monies to the safety net program so about a hundred thousand dollars of it that Aloha United Way allocates to various major causes like medical people that need housing you know in emergency situations they also. So the safety net program is an AUW program? Yes I'm sorry yes it's an AUW program. And so how is that linked with the food bank? They've allocated about a hundred thousand dollars in case there's a need emergency need for food. So you benefit from those donations that are allocated to the safety net? Yes exactly exactly every year you get a hundred thousand dollars. That's about about that about that much every year. What is your general budget? How big is your budget? Our operating budget's about five million dollars a year. And where does that all come from? The bulk of it the revenue side comes in from individuals that donate funds to us you know we have different vehicles for them to do that you know primarily to our direct mail our newsletters our email callouts and then we have events throughout the year that we have a really good community support on where people come in and participate whether that's a food drive we have an event at the food bank itself called great chefs where we kind of open up our warehouse and we invite chefs to come in and cook up some food and then we also have a golf tournament so we have a few events throughout the year to help us you know just publicize what we do and to get people to donate. I think many of us are familiar with the donation of cans right at work yes so that brings up a question of past due or as you say your inventory and stock your warehouse so do people are carefully not bringing you cans or anything that are past due dates are those is that an issue yeah we take a look at it and the main thing is it's not rusty or leaking or just severely dented yeah as long as it's not in one of those states we categorize we box it up and we do it allow the people to take it the agencies to take it along with them okay so now go back and give back to your events these are great events that you have a lot three or four times a year yes did you just have one recently are you having one in the next before the year and let's see right now we have a program with the supermarkets called check out hunger aha yep so that's a big one and is that a regular program you do every year and we've had this we've been fortunate to have this run for about 23 years and of the 23 years craft foods kind of underwrote some of our expenses for the last 13 years where you go to various supermarkets across the islands and you'll see a little point of sale thing by the check stand that has different tickets for consumers can actually donate money right at the check stand right so is that different than what I've seen at my safe way is there's a bag that's actually been filled with food yes and then one can pay and I guess choose which size is that different than yes it's different so each of the retailers you know support us in different ways and safely has that program and does that go to the food yes it does actually does so whatever you do with that program also comes to the food bank and so does the check out hunger I see okay so do we have something to show on the check out hunger there we go why don't you tell us a little bit about sure actually so you'll see this at the at various supermarkets across the state the participating stores are the safeway stores on the big island we have kta superstores and choice mark on oahu and maui we have time supermarkets shimas on oahu we have big save on kawai don kihote and for the first time this year we have marokai participating here on oahu also on oahu we have tomora supermarket in wine eye along with the tomora's markets and fine wines and liquors all over oahu and maui so we've got an abundance of support from a lot of local supermarkets yeah I see what about the mainland chains I noticed we have safeway but what about whole foods what times is a local supermarket oh well right right now we have safeway and whole foods and some of the other retailers support us in different ways how do they support you in various ways they do donations throughout the year and actually whole foods has a program now where they actually just donated a bunch of turkeys to us for Thanksgiving which is really nice in fact there's a promotion tied into that with uber and I believe it's free turkey with a ride if you need a ride to kahalamol to shop uber will give you a special prize and there's a donation to the food bank of a turkey I believe that's the program itself so it's a really nice program that we have a lot of these programs that we do have are available to you know for more details on our website www.hawaiifoodbank.org so you can probably get more details on that right and so about how much do you expect to receive in donations from you mentioned your five million dollar budget so yes what if that comes from these types of donations yeah so like in last year checkout hunger raised about two hundred eighty eight thousand dollars the overall program did now a portion of that does go to the islands that it that was raised on so for people on that are watching on maui the funds that are raised on maui through the supermarkets there will go to the maui food bank the people that are watching on the big island the money they're raised through kta and the stores there will go to the food basket and they have a branch in hilo and one in kona so it's food basket different than food bank um it's just a different name but the primary purpose is about the same so we don't have oversight over the maui food bank or the big island food baskets but we do work in partnership to make sure that we've got you know we have an overabundance of food here and it's a particular item we'll ship product to the maui food bank or to the big island and vice versa I see so you have to pay to ship yes right now we do have to pay so there is a cost involved with that and so we have to do run you know we do run fundraising events right to help offset those shipping costs sure wouldn't it does it ever come up up that perhaps it's better to buy the food on the neighbor islands and stock your your uh yeah I think it depends on what the item is like the big island there's an abundance of produce farmers there right papaya yeah papaya and just various types of fruits and vegetables so rather than let it go to waste from time to time they'll ship it to oahu or to maui so again we can share in some of that and we're always looking for you know produce fresher foods right you know I think the the connotation of a food bank is probably a lot of canned goods yeah whether it's fruits or vegetables or meats but one of our emphasis areas have been this past year and in the last couple years has been to try to provide more produce and fresh foods to the people oh that's wonderful what about on kawaii didn't you yes we have a branch on kawaii so you know check out hunger if you shop on kawaii again those month that those dollars will go to our hawaii food bank kawaii branch and we also ship you know a good amount of food from oahu to kawaii to help supplement what they're able to get there you know with kawaii they don't have as many businesses or suppliers that we have here on oahu so they have really good participation from the the businesses there but we also have to supplement with a product going from oahu there to help the people there on kawaii I see and so in terms of staff do you have how many staff do you have at the food bank do you have a separate group here in Honolulu and then on the neighbor islands yes we do in total we have about 40 staff people with both at food both food banks on the kawaii side we have about I think it's five five people that actually do that paid employees right we have a huge amount of volunteers so the volunteers that we have here on oahu and on kawaii really helps us get the the message out really helps us fulfill the cause that we need to so on an annual basis in fact on a daily basis you'll see you know a dozen or so volunteers at our food banks you'll see on the weekends specific weekends of the month you'll in fact this coming weekend we have about 100 volunteers coming in you know some for the military and businesses support us tremendously so actually first Hawaiian bank is coming in this weekend and what are they going to do they're going to we have various tasks we actually have a a senior feeding program that we do it's a federally federal grant that we receive and what we have to do is we buy the components of this box of this feeding box we buy the components in pallets it comes in what are in the components dried milk we have juice typically some kind of peanut butter maybe a canned vegetable or canned fruit and then we give them a bag of cheese but we bring in that product in bulk and then the volunteers come in and help us actually assemble it so we actually have a huge assembly line in our parking lot it's tented so they're protected from the sun we have one on one end they're creating boxes they're making actually boxes and it goes down the assembly line and all the volunteers are putting in the different components in till the very end yeah but it's a program we started about a year ago and we're up to 2400 so on a monthly basis we're helping about 2400 seniors here on Oahu get some food and the box is pretty heavy it's about 30 32 pounds worth of product that we're able to give them so it's it's nice to see their their their smiles on their face you know when they receive it because it just helps them make it you know through the month of course well on that note we're going to hold take a brief break uh and be right back this is carol manly with my guest Gerald Shintapu who is the president of the hawaii food bank we'll be right back hi i'm chris leetham with the economy and you and i'd like to invite you each week to come watch my show each wednesday at three p.m for a very healthy summer watch viva hawaii we're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here so viva health coach viva la comida saludable aloha my name is justine espiritu and i am the co-host of hawaii farmers series this is my co-host matthew johnson and we are live with you every thursday at four p.m at thinktech hawaii dot com and our show focuses on hawaii's local food community we feature not only the farmers that are producing our food but we also feature the supporters and other folks involved in the community that are trying to promote local agriculture hi welcome back this is carol manly and i'm very pleased to have our guest Gerald Shintaku who is the president of a u w one of a u w beneficiaries the hawaii food bank on a organization that's very important and dear to our hearts here in our community so okay so we were just talking about these wonderful boxes that you make for our kopuna and so about in general how many pounds do you distribute a year is that a good question to figure out how you measure absolutely most people are just so surprised you know when they come to the mapuna punar warehouse here on oahu as well as kawaii we actually distribute about a million pounds of food a month a month that comes out of our warehouse and goes to these agencies that we work with to give to the needy so it's it's if you do the math it's about 50 000 pounds a day of food goes out it's a million pounds a month and throughout the course of the year last year i think we did about 13.1 13.2 million pounds of food went out to the people that need more more than a million a month oh yes absolutely so you know we have a staff of about 40 fine people they work really hard they're very passionate about the cause and then the volunteers that i mentioned earlier we have tremendous amount of support from the community with volunteerism and so they all help us get this out to the people that need it so have you found that um of course the recession was almost eight years ago uh and i'm sure the need was very high then has the need changed as the economy has improved um no it really hasn't you know it really hasn't actually when the economy turned down what we used to depend on in the past in numbers of our pounds of donations of food switched over to the amount amount of food now we have to purchase so because when the economy turned down a lot of the you know the the suppliers that we had had to you know sharpen their pencil up because we have to make sure they stay in business um so they sharpen their pencils in terms of their ordering patterns and so on and so forth so now we find ourselves actually having to purchase more food and so with that said you know people think of the food bank and they think of bringing canned goods which is wonderful but we also appreciate uh you know any kind of cash or funding um uh supplies uh surplus um uh some cash donations donations yeah exactly that plays a big part what percentage do you think what is cash donations what percentage uh are cans people saving or office drives and what percentage is maybe grants and other other ways that you raise that's a good question well right now um i think we get about 66 percent of our food between the supermarkets that are here in the islands as well as the manufacturers and the farms the wholesalers the the producers here and then the rest of it comes about 15 percent of it comes to food purchases so that number 15 percent actually has doubled over the last 10 years so it was a lot smaller you know but now it's up to 15 percent and so in terms of number dollars how much is that um you know i don't have that number off the top of my head but we donate well i think last year we probably spent about 400 thousand dollars maybe a little bit more than that to just purchase food purchase food purchasing cans and extra yes exactly yeah we're affiliated with a national organization called Feeding America and it's an affiliation of food banks across the country and so this this affiliation with that group allows us to tap into food sources of food suppliers across the country that have an over inventory or surplus of maybe manufactured goods that maybe didn't quite sell and so we get a good discount off of it they ship them to hawaii oh yes we actually we can purchase it so we have a there's a website that we can look at and find out where these pockets of foods are including some grade b foods so they could be canned goods but maybe the the peas or the corn or whatever is in there might not be graded grade a where we buy stuff from the supermarkets with may not be all the same size yeah small issues but are very edible and very nutritious so we also have a source to find out where those inventories are and we're able to purchase it and bring it to the west coast and we have a good partnership with the two big shipping lines here that ship product to hawaii and so they help us bring it over to to the food bank wow very complicated yeah you know we talked a little bit earlier um as i attend different functions bank wits programs and there are there's always a wonderful spread buffet but there always seems to be a lot of leftovers yes and we talked about one of your partners and how how does that get reused or at least not wasted yeah so yeah we're at the hawaii food bank we're not equipped to to make those pickups you know typically it's after a buffet line or some kind of a big party as you mentioned Carol so there's another organization in town called aloha harvest and their function or their main charge is to um you know go and and tap in and find these sources you know of food that are available so they're also a uw i believe so yes organization exactly and how do they partner with you do they partner with you um not right right not right now but we're working towards that you know because again at the end of the day it's all about feeding the needy feeding the hungry and um so we're looking for opportunities right now to do that so do you keep statistics on the number of hungry people you mentioned the 200 plus thousand are they all being fed and or are we also seeing some problems because they you can't reach them all yeah the one thing with hunger it's not very visible you know when you talk about homeless it's pretty apparent when you you know drive to the streets where the homeless camps are the homeless people are but with food it could be anybody and it couldn't it doesn't necessarily have to be for a whole year or for years it could be you or i you know for some reason um during a certain month we had some kind of a uh unexpected medical expenditure or you know our car broke down or something that affected us and so you know when you rent a place you have to pay your rent and you have to pay your utilities right so the money goes there and then kind of what's left over is your food budget right but if something you know dramatic happens and you just don't have enough to buy yourself the food that you need for the month then um then you have to make certain adjustments and so those are the people that you don't see they're living in an apartment or wherever but you don't see them but they also are you know taking advantage of our services and as you say through your partners right as opposed to coming down to your Mapuna Puna warehouse they will use one of your 20 plus partners yes we have over 200 agencies across Oahu we have another i think 30 on kawaii and again they're located throughout the you know throughout the north shore out on the leeward side out on the east side a lot here you know in the central part of Oahu but they're located all over the place so it's from a convenience standpoint it allows people to not have to travel far distance to get food or have a car or have a car exactly yeah exactly how do we find out the names of those by going to your website yep you can come to our website you know hawaiifoodbank.org and you can look it up um and um yeah we'll be happy to you know i think the reference is there okay so do you have some more numbers for us um no i think you know just uh you know the the the neat thing you know i came from a craft foods and i'm now working for the food bank and one thing that i do know is uh many nonprofits you know they're very good in terms of um you know how they're able to stretch their dollars so at the food bank you know for every ten dollars that you donate we can buy 25 meals for somebody that needs it yeah so and part of it is due to what i talked about earlier in terms of being able to source this food on the mainland again it might not be grade a could be grade b which is very edible um but you know again ten dollars equates to 25 meals and if you think about it i mean that's a lot of impact you have wait really yeah so this program to check out hunger program that we have is um you know last year generated about 288 thousand um 288 thousand dollars for us and so with that said you know i mean if you do the math on it i think it comes out to somewhere around um look at my figures so i get it right here about 720 thousand meals wow was it we were able to generate from this checkout hunger program and it runs from now through january 17 right i can see it for two dollars and 81 cents you can feed a child breakfast for a week yes and for 1243 you can feed a senior lunch for a month right it's amazing and for 16 dollars and 84 cents you can actually feed a family dinner for a week exactly again that's through the efficiencies of what we're able to purchase plus all the donations that we get from the community um you know so when you go through those participating supermarkets that i did mention earlier you'll see this uh stand by the check stand and so very simple as you're buying your groceries you just pick off the denomination you want to donate and they scan it in it gets added to your food bill right no pain most people won't feel it at all exactly exactly if you think about it you know um you know whether it's a drink of you know a cup of coffee or whatever it is it's um or less it's a cup of coffee is more than two dollars and 81 cents yeah maybe nowadays yeah so yeah add it to the food bill and if you need a record for your taxes you can do that too and look what we have here on the screen this is a letter from a child do you know anything about this um you know we get um so many letters from uh people across the state let me look at it take it it says dear food bank of hawaii thank you for the food and we appreciate that you give us food oh okay and it is so good yeah so this looks like it's from a very grateful child yes yeah we do have a with this painting that was included thank you for the food yeah we just recently got a message from a child through one of our programs that helps one of the really underprivileged elementary schools here on oahu and uh it's a called a backpack program so we pack up these little backpacks for the children so they can take it home on fridays because if you're underprivileged or needy you get breakfast and lunch at school so throughout the week they're taken care of but when you go home on the weekends if your family doesn't have the resources then you go hungry so we pack up a little backpack of food for them to take home for the weekend and not only to feed the family that basically what it comes down to so it the intent is to take care of the child we had a nice little note a few months ago from a child thanking us basically she said um thank you for the backpack because now grandma can have some soup oh and so you know you know the child is sharing with the family and that we're taking care of everybody or as many people as we can in the house right but yeah we have letters like that all the time oh that's wonderful well we have one minute left Gerald and I'd like you too if you would address our camera and um tell us what you would like our community to hear about the Hawaii food bank sure absolutely well besides the checkout hunger program that we talked about today you know this is so we're getting into the season of giving with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up so we have a lot of businesses that support us with food drives and monetary donations but I just like to reach out to individuals out there as you are looking at your planning for year-end if you can continue to keep the Hawaii food bank uh or give us consideration um you know as again you're making your year-end um you know financial arrangements and and donations and such um all your food goes out to a worthy cause 95 cents of every dollar actually goes back to providing services to the needy so we're a very efficient organization we have got a great bunch of passionate people and I'm so fortunate to be able to be associated with them so thank you Carol thank you so much Gerald this is such an important organization for our community to help keep all of us strong and we appreciate the good work that you and the Hawaii food bank thank you very much for letting us share our message today thank you so for us today at Hawaii Big Tech Hawaii aloha and we'll see you next time