NAWILIWILI — A couple from Canada dropped off food, intact and packaged items that were remaining following their stay on Kauai Thursday morning at the Kauai Independent Food Bank.
“These are probably left over,” said Kelvin Moniz, KIFB executive director. “We get them quite a bit — items that are still unopened and seals intact. They’re on the way to the airport, now, and we need the food. It’s better than having it end up in the landfill.”
The words were still hanging in the morning air when a truck drove up, its occupants asking for emergency food, triggering Leona Perez, IFB programs manager, into action drawing on the new contributions and supplementing it with stores from the food bank’s shelves.
“Food comes in, food goes out,” she said as a truck containing more food drove up.
This belonged to the Immaculate Conception Church group that dropped off 396 pounds of food, representing a food drive collection at the church for the month of December.
“This is part of the church’s outreach,” said Ale Quibilan of the Immaculate Conception Church Parish Council. “We want to get out more into the community. The food drive is part of our outreach, and we plan to do more.”
Quibilan said in addition to the food drive, Immaculate Conception has been helping Women in Need for several years. The church also arranged to have its Childen’s Choir join the Kauai Chorale in performances at Princeville and Lihue.
“We’re doing these outreach programs to offer people an opportunity to serve,” Quibilan said. “These are options available to show people how the church helps the community. We also have a group of 50, or 60 people who are broken up into groups to help feed the Kauai Economic Opportunity homeless shelter every Saturday. This has grown to more than a hundred meals a week.”
