LIHU‘E — David Chung, The Salvation Army ARC team leader, said he was sorry to have missed Santa on Friday during the monthly donation event at the Kaua‘i Resource Center.
Phil Worwa, also known as “Santa in Paradise,” was one of the early drop offs after not being able to locate a shipper to Tonga for his spring cleaning.
“I’m just going in,” Worwa said in a voicemail. “I know it’s graduation and there are a lot of things going on.”
Chung, not anticipating a lot of activity for this May collection, was surprised with the turnout.
“I didn’t think we were going to be busy,” the team leader said. “But we’re already working on filling the second container. It’s been only two hours since we opened and already we’ve logged in nearly a hundred cars. The second container will probably be filled by noon, and we’re going to have to start the overflow. Already, I’m readjusting what goes in the can so we can get as much packed before we seal it.”
The two containers are estimated to divert 14 tons of material from Kaua‘i’s Kekaha Landfill, based on estimates provided by the county’s Solid Waste Division.
“Our goal is to pack and ship as much as we take in,” said Shantelle Rego of the Solid Waste Division. “But it always ends up that we have material in the overflow area.”
Adding to the activity, the ARC team was working on cleaning out the thrift store at the Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital that will be closed while its new home elsewhere on the Kapa‘a campus is finished.
“The boys started working on the thrift store Tuesday,” Chung said. “They were back there on Wednesday and Thursday to clean up everything. Helga Ephan came to pick up the receipt, today.”
Amidst the steady stream of vehicles flowing through the KRC for donations, Richard Koerte wanted to know when the next donation event was going to take place.
“We’re already scheduled to return, June 24,” Chung said. “And after that, we’ll be back on July 29.”
Each of the donation events will be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kaua‘i Resource Center.
so important to have these options for Kauai people to share their still good stuff to be re-used. I wish we had more creative recycle stores of Kauai.. I always wonder what happens to all the boogie boards and beach chairs and coolers the tourists buy and what do they do with them? we need stores for tourists to re-use stuff like that to decrease our wastes. We all need to change our shopping habits think re-use first!!!
this is so good!! people throw away so much good stuff that can be re-used…. wish we had a site that would take good stuff so people can easily just stop it by on the way to the dump…. perhaps a 60 day holding area for stuff – so others would have a chance to check it out and hopefully make use of it.
Our Kauai County needs to invest to find new ways to divert items going to the dump!!! Need to incentivize tourist condos to have recycle and “reuse ” options on their grounds. Also restaurants and other business to assure recycle is an option. Construction items that can be re-used… huge waste when they are dumped. Is there a task force to really dig into this? So much can be done to divert recycle and re-usable items from being dumped…. COME ON KAUAI WE CAN DO THIS!!!!!!! WE HAVE TO DO THIS NOW!!!!!