NAWILIWILI — The crew from Pioneer Hi-Bred could not wait for Costco to open Friday. While waiting, they stopped at the Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank facility in Nawiliwili, with a teaser of an in-house employee food drive. Judy Lenthall, executive
NAWILIWILI — The crew from Pioneer Hi-Bred could not wait for Costco to open Friday.
While waiting, they stopped at the Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank facility in Nawiliwili, with a teaser of an in-house employee food drive.
Judy Lenthall, executive director of the KIFB, opened her mouth, but initially no words came out.
Pioneer Hi-Bred employees came bearing 1,620 pounds of rice and an additional 182 pounds of food collected from its food drive.
“We asked the employees who should benefit from the drive, and they all agreed it should be the Kaua‘i Independent Food Bank,” said Judith Rivera, the Pioneer Station Manager of Research. “We added that the employees’ contribution would be matched by the managers. That came out of our own pockets.”
When the crew designated for shopping at Costco realized how much was being contributed, that stoked Rivera to dig deeper and add a hundred pounds of rice — before the store even opened.
“This is perfect,” Lenthall said, finally finding some words. “We had a really good Holiday Food and Fund Drive, but with all the emergency food requests, everything has been going out as fast as it comes in. This allows us to keep feeding people before the Spring Food and Fund Drive kicks off from Feb. 23 to the end of April.”
State senator Ron Kouchi, stopping in to visit with Lenthall, was inspired by the event taking place and added to the collection with a personal contribution, demonstrating his support for the KIFB work.
Rivera said Pioneer realized the food bank would need help between the drives and conducted its in-house drive for that reason.
“Everyone covers the holiday drives,” Rivera said. “But the food bank is year round. We just wanted to make sure there was something to help feed people who need food. There are two other seed companies who will also be stepping in with drives as well.”
Kelvin Moniz, the KIFB Operations Manager, said there was a surge in demand for food over the holidays.
“We had 12,935 emergency requests for food for December,” Moniz said. “That is up from November when we finished with 10,811 requests.”
By the end of 2010, Moniz said KIFB saw an increase of more than 30 percent for food demand. Last year’s totals amounted to 116,437 requests, compared with the 2009 total of 88,979 requests.
Since 2007, demand for food has risen more than 70 percent, Moniz said.
“Volunteers are the key to KIFB being able to live up to its mission of ‘prevent hunger, provide nutritious food for the hungry, and respond to emergencies,’” Moniz said. “We could not do what we are doing right now without the help of the community, and all the volunteers.”
