 BOOM! We're live! Okay. Momshake by Del is a think-tank, Aloha United, we stand here on Thursday at noon, 12 o'clock, rock, every single Thursday. At Aloha United Way, we support 242-some odd charities in the state of Hawaii, all doing good work, all hand-picked, hand-selected, careful, you know, reflection of the needs of the community. They send down people like Community Clearinghouse, which is part of Helping Hands Hawaii. Okay, and today we have to my left, Maria Vaughn, she's the Community Clearinghouse warehouse supervisor, and to her left, James Lee, program manager. Welcome to the show, you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Well, how did you get into Community Clearinghouse and Helping Hands? Well, I actually have a pretty personal story with Helping Hands Hawaii. I actually started off as a case manager quite some time ago, but when I started with the agency, after my contract ended, I loved the agency so much that I came back. Wow. When the position was open while I was still volunteering, of course. That's a great statement. You're dedicated by definition. Yeah, so I mean it's a great agency to work for, and I mean we're partners with Aloha United Way, so the agency itself does a lot of great work out in the community. James, how about you? For me, my journey actually also began as a volunteer, so I started volunteering with the agency, looking for a job, and I eventually was hire on as a temporary worker, but then slowly, you know, fell in love with the work, fell in love with the people. So definitely, I think as a company we share a passion in serving our community, of course, working with people. Okay, I'm really impressed. You know, with dedication. So you said, passion for serving community, how exactly do you serve the community? Well, as an agency, helping Hands of IE, we serve the community in many different ways. Specifically, in the community at Clearinghouse, we provide material goods. There are other programs that operate out at the Clearinghouse, of course, that provides different aspects of assistance. Is to provide families and those who are struggling, whether they be individuals or elderly or family with children, with resources, so that they might continue on their path to achieve self-sufficiency and prosperity. So that says that they do not have self-sufficiency at the moment you first have contact with them. They are disadvantaged in some way. Sure. And you're going to provide them quote material goods, I want to explore that, to help them on their path to self-sufficiency. How do you do that? Well, through... As any nonprofit will tell you, community collaboration is a huge aspect of our work. So we work with a network of providers that we regularly connect with that identifies these families that are already doing such good works in the community in many different areas. And they identify these families and they provide us with a referral to come through the warehouse. Many of our different programs that provide different types of services in a way of housing and rental utility assistance in a way of providing behavioral health services are all interconnected within the agency so that we may identify these families and assist them in a holistic manner. So you are the manager, the program manager of Community Clearinghouse or Helping Hands. Tell me the hierarchy of it. So Helping Hands of IU is our agency. Community Clearinghouse is one of our programs, specifically in the Human Services Division. Under Helping Hands of IU we also have a behavioral health division which provides specialized services in the way of mental health. Also we have a bilingual access line which provides language access and services. So you control other programs aside from this one with the community clearinghouse. Okay, let's turn to you, Maria. Maria, and the hard goods department. You're a warehouse manager. I have this vision I have this vision of Amazon warehouse and goes on for miles. What is it like to warehouse? Actually pretty close. If you walk into our location on Nimitz there and you walk into the warehouse it is literally high 10 roofs, high ceiling. We've got roll-up doors and you'll see the items donated to us by members of the community. So you'll see clothes, you'll see furniture, beds, stressors, chairs. We also have a small food pantry and on a day-to-day basis you can see the hustle and bustle of the warehouse from donors dropping off donated items to clients coming in to checking in for their appointments as well. Wow, that's pretty interesting. So the warehouse is filled with donated items. That's what it amounts to. Yes. Including some food. Yes. The hustle and bustle is the people who are looking to deliver those items but you also deliver those items. You have a staff that delivers those items for the people who need them. Unfortunately, we have limited resources. So what we do provide, however, is a pickup service for our donors where we can go out and pick up donated items. In the case of delivery of goods we actually recently partnered with Halimaliola who helps housing first clients move into units. So in that capacity we do offer drop-off of the donated items. We find that a lot of our clients their struggle with coming into the warehouse for services is the delivery component. Many of these families are low income, very limited, homeless, and so therefore they don't have the means to transport a lot of these items. Many families who are able to bring in vehicles are families who have relatives or friends who perhaps have a truck who help them. But the majority of the time the difficulty lies with the delivery of the goods. So how do you, well, two questions by the way, I'm curious about warehouse because warehouse says to me, it says tech. You can't organize a warehouse without tech. What kind of tech do you have to organize the warehouse? So currently right now a lot of our technology that we hope to install are things such as like POS systems, point of cell systems to help us inventory, categorize. You can tell me what's in the warehouse right now. Right now we don't have that inventory. I can give you general categories at the moment in terms of the items that we receive. However, in terms of actual details, in terms of amounts, quality, things of that nature when it came in, I can't give you exact details of those quite yet. Is that something you're looking to do? Yes. We definitely are looking to improve that system. One of the possible ways to do that off the top of my head was a POS system hoping to categorize those items better so that we have the appropriate information for a lot of our donors as well as clients. You know, last Saturday it was a kickoff on a program called HAC, H-A-C-C. It's organized by DBED, Department of Business Education Business Economic Development and Tourism in the government, state government. And this is a month-long hackathon where these young millennial type, computer programmer type people sit in May programs. Many of them are making programs for nonprofits. A month is enough time to really get some traction on building a program. I'm not sure there's time for you to enter that, but it's something you ought to check up on because they might give you a free services and create a program that will help you in the warehouse. Definitely. That sounds awesome. Any help we can get? Yeah, sure. Okay, and then you have distribution systems and so you probably have to identify who's the door, who's coming around so they don't take advantage of you in any way. Yes. Because they could come Monday get stuff, come Tuesday get stuff and be selling it around the outside. Yes, yes. We definitely do have things in place, policies, procedures in place where we in a sense do a check. Make sure that people who are in need are receiving the services that we can provide but at the same time to ensure that the services and the goodwill of our donors are not being taken advantage of at the same time. It's a matter of integrity for the program to ensure that. You don't want to be involved in a program with a trapdoor. Definitely not. Definitely not. So goodwill, you use the word goodwill and it reminds me of goodwill industry. Goodwill industry says put your stuff on the street, we'll pick it up and take it down and give it to the right people. So this is kind of like that, right? Similar. Very similar system except we don't sell our items. Our items go back to our clients entirely free of charge and we really depend on our partners to appropriately check their clients. We do a verification process on our site to ensure that the clients do qualify according to the Federal Property Guidelines and any other things that they have to abide by before they come in for the actual appointment. If I wanted to make a donation to this community clearinghouse division, so to speak of helping hands, how would I do that? I would take my stuff that I don't need where I think that might be useful for somebody else and I would put it in my car and drive it down to your warehouse on Nimitz. Nimitz on St. Island Road, yeah? Yes. And I would say, Maria, I'm here. How would that work? So our donation drop-offs were open Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. to 4 30. Donors can drop in any time. I do have a staff who sits in the front. Her name is Pula. She'll be able to help you and check you in, give as much assistance as she can and then if the donor yourself require a donation receipt, and we do have that in the front for you to fill out as well. Okay, okay, that's really valuable. What's your website, though? People can look this up. Sure. www.helpinghandshawaii.org Okay, excellent. And your phone, can I call too and check up? Sure. You can actually call anytime at 440-3800. And actually with that number, you can also call to arrange the donation pickup. So if the donor has bulky items for an event, things like that, we can try to accommodate by doing the pickup for the donor. This includes everything, furniture? My goodness, anything in the world. Do you ever say no? Do you ever say, please not? Yes, yes. Unfortunately, there are certain items that we aren't able to take, whether it may need due to safety reasons, we aren't equipped with the staff to appropriately assess the condition of these items. Things such as car seats, medical equipment, things that potentially are demographic might not need such as pianos. Most of our families are no... Most of our families are moving into small units or they're needing very basic items. For example, beds. The highest demand item that I get constantly are beds. Because they have no money, they're moving in, there's no place to sleep, they don't have any furniture. A bed would really be helpful. Yes, the level of request for beds to the point where I'm constantly calling to see who out there has beds. Beds, beds, anybody beds. You know, the client's calling and saying, you know, my children are on the floor. I need to get in. Can we get a bed? I can't keep the beds on the floor, you know, quick stocked, you know, enough for the clients who come in on the day-to-day basis. Now some of your clients come in, they don't know exactly what they need. They can't match things up because they don't know exactly what's in this warehouse and they don't even know what they actually need. So do you talk to them? Do you say, you know, let's see your circumstances and see if we can match up what we think you might need with what we have here as you go through that? Definitely. So the first part of contact is with their own case manager so that the case manager can assess what it is that they need when they come into us. I always tell them when we check them in, they have about a half an hour or so to shop. We leave them alone. Let them walk around. Yeah, let them walk around, let them get their shopping cart. Is that right? Yeah, give them the dignity right. It's not like Costco. The dignity to pretty much choose their own items and people don't question you. It's what you like, go for it. You know, you've already done the proper process. But the checkout, so to speak, I know it's not really a checkout. Sure. You ever say, you know, do you really need that? Are you over stocking here? We do, we do. And as I mentioned earlier, we do have a policy in place and the staff is awesome about being mindful of what the clients take and making sure that it matches up to what is, it's reflective of what's on the application. That's Maria Vaughan. She's with Community Clearinghouse, a part of Helping Hands and James Lee is here with us. He's a program manager for that program. We'll take a short break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk to James about the landscape of nonprofits and charitable organizations in Hawaii. Hey, how you doing? Welcome to the Bachi Talk. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm your co-host. And we have a nice program here every Friday at 1 o'clock on Think Tech Studios where we talk about technology and we have a little bit of fun with it. So join us if you can. Thanks. Aloha. Hello, I'm Crystal from Quok Talk. I've got a new show here. You've got to tune in, check out my topics on sensitive, provocative, female issues. So Tuesday mornings, 10 o'clock, don't miss it, it's going to be fun and dangerous. Hi, I'm Keely Akina, president of the Grass Root Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at 2 o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Keely Akina. Aloha. Bingo, we're back. We're back with Maria Vaughn and James Lee of Community Clearing House, part of Helping Hands. So during the break, that's why we do these breaks, you know, regroup. We had a discussion about exactly where is the warehouse. It sounds like a game or something. Where is the warehouse? So maybe we didn't describe it accurately before. Where is the warehouse? They get there. Oh, sure. So we're located 2100 North Nimitz Highway. We're right at the intersection of Nimitz and Puhu Halle. So if you're familiar with that area, it's about a block over from Sand Island that we mentioned earlier. There's actually a two-story McDonald's there. So we're right across the street. I know that McDonald's. That's the woman you take an inter-island flight and you're hungry when you come back. Immediately go to that McDonald's and you find out everybody in the place is doing the same thing. Yes. We're right there, one of the four corners. We are entrance, however, though. It's a little bit on the back. So on the backside of the building. So you're going to have to turn on Puhu Halle to get into our property. Okay. All right, James, let's focus on you. Okay. Let's look at the larger picture. First, what kind of other programs do you operate at Helping Hands? Myself, personally. So I am a program manager in the Human Services Division. The Human Services Division assists with basic needs, what we consider basic needs. So Community Clearinghouse, of course, provides material goods. I also manage the SNAP Community Outreach Program, which is an outreach program for public benefit specifically for SNAP. That's the one I had heard of. I think it's well-known, yeah. Yeah, so we do outreach work for people who are potentially eligible for SNAP, people who may be phasing access barriers for one reason or another, whether it's, you know, the language barrier or because you're disabled and you're lack mobility, you're unable to seek the benefit. So we, you know, try to bridge that gap in providing that service for people. So you say SNACs. SNAP. Oh, SNAP. Yeah, SNAP. What's a SNAP? SNAP is an acronym for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is a newer term for systems. It's more important than a SNAC. Or you can get SNACs with SNAP. Okay. Now, what about the comparison with Meals on Wheels? Is there still a Meals on Wheels? Well, Meals on Wheels provides actual meals, hot meals that are delivered to the families and individuals. SNAP is a benefit, it's a federal benefit, you know, it's another word for food stamps. Basically, it's issue to the individual or family that they can, you know, go and do grocery shopping themselves. It's a fund that gets recharged where you can utilize to buy groceries and unprepared food. So you're not having inventory of food? No. This is a safe way. Right. So we are assisting with the acquisition and maintenance of the benefit. An administrative task. Right. Because we find that in doing outreach, a lot of the time people are aware that the program exists and know that the resource is out there. They either have difficulty accessing the resources or they're not able to stay on it for very long because of access barriers, like mobility, not having a point of contact for our transient population. Physically can't get down and use the food stamps. Exactly. And that's a real difficulty. And, you know, to, you know, bigger issues of being in areas where there are lack access points, you know, there's no places where you can get to. Provide folks with the most updated information about who qualifies and who doesn't actually assist in the application process in providing assistance and information about most recent changes about the program. Providing our transient population a consistent point of contact. Is that a homeless? Homeless population who don't have typically a consistent point of contact, you know, you may lose your phone today and have a contact number the other day or don't have a regular place to receive mail. We try to meet the community at their location, at their environment, you know, and this includes... You get out and go and talk to them. Exactly. And this includes forming community partnerships, agencies that operate drop-in center, food pantries, actually being at those locations and meeting the community. Yeah. Oh, that's very important. So, but essentially it's a federal program. You're administering a federal program. And does the state get involved in this? Does the state supports this program too? Right. So, to clarify it, SNAP is a federally funded benefit, but it's operated on the state level by the Department of Human Services. Okay. So, we are contracted from the Department of Human Services to conduct outreach activities. Okay. How important is that in the larger picture of helping hands? It sounds like it's a really important thing because it's where people eat. Yep. And eating, as I last understood, is really important. Absolutely. And it really is a piece of a bigger puzzle. So, food resources, material goods, financial resources, all place into the big picture of helping an individual and a family to achieve self-sufficiency. Yeah. Now, the implication you're giving is that somebody down and out, somebody's homeless, I mean, maybe it's the same thing these days, and you're going to help them achieve self-sufficiency. So, and self-sufficiency, I take it, is to have a place, have a bed that's important, too. And, you know, otherwise get on your feet, become self-sufficient, maybe a job. Two jobs are good. Absolutely. So, you help in all of this continuum, all of these elements, to get them from the street, from being, you know, down and out to a more ordinary life, yeah? Yeah. So, what other functions do you perform in this way? Well, really, as you said, Jay, is a part of a larger continuum. And achieving self-sufficiency while that being the end goal, we may not necessarily see it a lot of the time in providing that services. And that really speaks to the importance, once again, to the community collaborations. Whatever we are not able to do, we make sure that we help individuals be aware of and get to agencies that are able to provide that type of services. So, you refer them out? Absolutely. If you find they need something on this road to self-sufficiency that you don't have, then you're going to refer them to another agency. Absolutely. And that's the collaboration you're talking about. You know, it's kind of a blur, but every single week we talk to some of the charities who are associated in some way, some more than others, you know, with the Law United Way. And it's a blur because a lot of them are really dedicated to the same thing. And I like your thoughts about that. I mean, is it working efficiently? Is this the way the charitable community has to work, where everybody sort of takes a whack at the same problem and they talk to each other and they see if they can coordinate, but in fact, you have agency, agency, agency, agency dedicated to, you know, helping the same people in the same way. But different somehow. Yeah. How does that work? Well, I think it's definitely a work in progress, but it's definitely a place that we want to get to, is when everybody can come together and work together as opposed to, you know, being territorial and being competitive. That's who we need to avoid, yeah. Right, right. But, you know, preserving the understanding that you are always going to have agencies that are specialized, you know, in the work that they do. And we want that. We want people to be good at what they do. But at the same time, we need to recognize the importance of coming together and sharing resources, especially in the nonprofit industry where, you know, managing limited resources is kind of an ongoing and constant challenge. Yeah. So we want to get everybody into the mindset of doing that. And I think, you know, over the years we're not quite where we want to be, but we are making in terms of what? In terms of getting everybody on the same page and, you know, the whole collaborative mindset. Yeah. But I think, you know, indications is that we have some great strides, you know, with Aloha United Way bringing agencies together with, you know, groups like Partners in Care that are bringing agencies together to work on issues of homelessness. So there are more and more, you know, community collaboratives that are coming up. Yeah, I'm really happy that you're sensitive to these issues. What do you do, James, if you find, for example, that another agency with which, you know, we may or may not collaborate with is doing pretty much the same. Is there an MO and how you deal with that? Do you call up and say, look, you're doing the same thing we're doing. Can't we collaborate and avoid duplication of effort? Does that happen? Absolutely. And that is inherent to our, you know, procurement process that we're, that when we seek, you know, projects or funds to feel areas of need, that is obviously the first thing that we look at as an agency is whether or not there is a need. Not whether or not there is a need in the community, but whether or not there is a need for us to be serving on this particular issue. So that goes into part of the research about, you know, who is already serving this type of topics or areas in the community and whether or not our efforts will be of duplicative in that sense. Yeah. You know, I've come to the conclusion over time that that we don't want government. We want to minimize government's involvement on the front line. You know, we want Maria running that warehouse. We do not want the government running that warehouse. It will be a lot better if Maria is running the warehouse than if the government is running the warehouse. You know, it's just the operators, the ones at the front and the ones that have the actual contact with the beneficiaries of these organizations. They got to be non-profit. They can be dedicated by it like you are. So that, you know, to me, that's just something I've learned in my own ethic on the matter. But then within the non-profit world, which is a hard world, as you mentioned, always looking for money, always trying to find volunteers, always trying to keep it going, you know, for this visionary thing of trying to help people, this is not easy. And I commend you both on being involved in that industry. It's really important. It's important in Hawaii for sure. But there's two, there's a breakdown of two levels. One of the operators who run warehouses and actually deal with people. And the other are the administrators who keep it all together, who do the collaboration, right? Who create the priorities who raise the money. It sounds like you're in that level of activity and there are many of you. And I guess the question I put to you is who is leading that? Should we have government leading that? Nah. What do we do to keep everything coordinated? I think every party has to be involved, definitely from the community, but definitely funders, government entities as you mentioned. But I think what is more important is that there to be a feedback loop. We are, I believe more tuned with the population and the need of the community. And it's important for us to have a venue to voice that feedback and get that information back to the funders and report our work and our finding accurately so that they can appropriate the resources hopefully back to us to do the work. So it once again is that collaborative effort not just side to side but top to bottom as well to provide that information. So I know you guys come you come with notes you've been thinking about as you talk about it. You talk to your colleagues about it. They like to get a message out, okay? So I want to offer you this last part of the show here, you know, a minute maybe each of you to get, you know, there must be something you wanted to talk about in real, but you never had the chance. This is your big opportunity. Face that camera and tell them what you wanted to tell them. Okay, well I really actually wanted to also discuss about our seasonal programs that we run out of the community clearing house. We have our school supply program where we assisted I believe we made about 8,000 kits or so, 8,500 kits for children of low-income families. So that just wrapped up and we are actually gearing up for our Christmas holiday program Adopt a Family. So be on the lookout for all communications in regard to that seasonal program. Thank you, Maria. Okay, James Lee, what do you leave them with? Well, I think Maria pretty much did my part about promoting the seasonal program that is coming up, but I just want to thank Tech for the opportunity for us to be here today. I want to thank Aloha United Way for providing support to agencies like ourselves and thank you everybody. Excellent, you guys are great. You're a great team. You're both healthy. Thank you very much, James, Maria. Thank you for having us.