KOLOA — The Grove Farm Company got the help of the Kaua‘i Police Department Friday during the final face-mask distribution fom the company that took place along the shoulders of Po‘ipu Road.
“We started out at the drive-thru section for the Koloa Public Library and the Koloa Elementary School drop off,” said Beau Acoba of Grove Farm. “That didn’t quite work because no one was turning off the road into the drive-thru.”
The group that included Koloa School Principal Leila Maeda-Kobayashi and Parent Community Networking Center Coordinator Monica Buhk moved the distribution to the Po‘ipu Road crosswalk for the school.
The move not only helped move the packages, but also brought awareness to that Po‘ipu Road section being signed to be a slow zone because of the crosswalk and pedestrian accessibility, as motorists slowed on seeing the blue light of the KPD cruiser.
The move also captured a lot of other traffic that uses Po‘ipu Road, the volunteers having to reload while passing masks to construction trucks, service vehicles, bicyclists, moped riders and others that would not leave the flow of traffic to get face masks. Each vehicle was allocated a package containing five masks, with accommodations for vehicles that contained more than one person.
“One guy told me he has a lot of elderly neighbors,” Buhk said. “He took a bunch for them. However, he said, he would’ve told a lot of people about this, but he only saw it in the papers once.”
Grove Farm originally brought in 15,000 face masks, and hosted face mask giveaways at the Elsie Wilcox Elementary School and King Kaumuali‘i Elementary School, where they also received the help of KPD in traffic control. Grove Farm reminds people to properly dispose of personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and shields.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
