Plastic bags work well was the observation made by Kelvin Moniz of the Kaua‘i Food Bank, Monday morning. He arrived with James Hughes to pick up food at the U.S. Post Office Lihu‘e processing facility following a collective effort by
Plastic bags work well was the observation made by Kelvin Moniz of the Kaua‘i Food Bank, Monday morning.
He arrived with James Hughes to pick up food at the U.S. Post Office Lihu‘e processing facility following a collective effort by mail carriers in the National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive over the weekend.
Five large wheeled containers holding a variety of food, most of it in blue plastic bags, greeted the pair.
“This year, the Lihu‘e station had 2,965 pounds of food,” Moniz said after wheeling out the last of the containers. “This is more than double of what they collected last year.”
Earlier, Hughes said he spent the greater part of Saturday afternoon picking up the collection from the Kapa‘a post office.
“They had 3,838 pounds of food,” Moniz said. “The other post offices combined will have about a thousand pounds.”
Moniz credits the blue plastic bags received by postal patrons as being the reason so many people contributed to the National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive over the weekend.
“In the past, the post office used to send out postcards to remind people of the Letter Carriers Food Drive,” Moniz said. “But with the plastic bags, people have something to put the food in, and that works.”
He credits one of the Hawai‘i Food Bank people with the idea of the plastic bags which were made possible through grants from the Hawai‘i State AFL-CIO, Summer Lin Easy Hawai‘i, the Honolulu Letter Carriers, Branch 860, and K. Yamada Distributors.
The Letter Carriers Food Drive represents one of the final efforts at meeting the goal of the food bank’s Spring Food and Fund Drive of $40,000 and 40,000 pounds of food.
Moniz said the next major event for the Kaua‘i Food Bank will be the Dine Out event later in the summer where restaurants will be featured.
That event will be followed by the Holiday Food and Fund Drive.
For people who wish to contribute to the Kaua‘i Food Bank, collection sites still remain open at any of the Kaua‘i fire stations around the island, or they can drop off items to the Kaua‘i Food Bank’s Nawiliwili facility.
For more information, call the food bank at 246-3809.
