NAWILIWILI — The collection numbers are down, but Kelvin Moniz, development officer at the Kaua‘i Food Bank, remains optimistic. “We won’t have final figures until all the collections come in Thursday afternoon, but the collections are definitely down,” Moniz said
NAWILIWILI — The collection numbers are down, but Kelvin Moniz, development officer at the Kaua‘i Food Bank, remains optimistic.
“We won’t have final figures until all the collections come in Thursday afternoon, but the collections are definitely down,” Moniz said after doing preliminary tallies on the food collected by the National Association of Letter Carriers, Saturday.
Moniz said there was an initial drop off Saturday from the Kapa‘a post office and the KFB warehouse people picked up the Lihu‘e collection Monday.
Initially, Moniz was hopeful they could at least match the 2008 totals, but as the collection was processed, it became evident that this year’s collection is coming up short.
As of Monday afternoon, Moniz said the Kapa‘a collection is 713 pounds below last year’s contributions, and the Lihu‘e collection is 359 pounds behind last year’s numbers.
Overall, Kapa‘a totaled 2,135 pounds of food and the Lihu‘e carriers collected a little more than 2,600 pounds.
“We’ll have our drivers going out to the North Shore on Wednesday and to the Westside and South Shore on Thursday,” Moniz said. “After that, we’ll have an idea of how much this year’s totals will be.”
Moniz said the Letter Carriers food drive is part of a nationwide effort in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service and the AFL-CIO. It does not count as part of the Kaua‘i Food Bank Spring Food and Fund Drive that ended April 30.
Prior to the Saturday collection, the letter carriers distributed special blue plastic bags for the donations.
Last year’s collection totaled 10,000 pounds, the best collection, Moniz said. Prior to that 3,800 pounds was collected in 2007 and 6,000 pounds was collected in 2006. Moniz estimates this year’s collection will come in at about 8,000 pounds.
Nationwide, the 2008 letter carriers delivered a record 73.1 million pounds of food, states a United States Postal Service release. Since 1993, when the letter carrier drive started, the USPS carriers has resulted in delivery of more than 900 million pounds of donations to community food banks and pantries, making it the largest one-day food collection in the nation.
For the food drive that ended April 30, Moniz said there are still collection packets outstanding, but the food bank met its financial goal of $40,000. The food collection goal of 40,000 pounds is still short at about 23,000 pounds but Moniz is optimistic since people are still contributing.
The recent Food Day drive that benefited the Spring Food and Fund Drive came in at 18 percent below last year’s event, and Moniz said demand for Kaua‘i Food Bank services is up by 48 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the first quarter of 2008.
“We just want to thank all of the people who contributed to the drive,” Moniz said. “We know it’s hard and we appreciate what the people are doing to help other people.”
Moniz also pointed out the effort put forth by the volunteers from the Kalaheo Missionary Church and the Kapa‘a Seventh Day Adventist who came out to process the letter carrier collections.
“We truly appreciate the volunteers for helping us,” Moniz said. “Last year, it took us three or four days to process the letter carrier collections. This year, the volunteers processed the collections as they came in. It makes a big difference.”
For more information, visit www.kauaifoodbank.org.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com
