LIHU‘E — More than 200 families and individuals will have a brighter holiday season as they picked up their holiday distribution packages, Friday at The Salvation Army. “This is good,” said Victor Lucas who has been leading The Salvation Army
LIHU‘E — More than 200 families and individuals will have a brighter holiday season as they picked up their holiday distribution packages, Friday at The Salvation Army.
“This is good,” said Victor Lucas who has been leading The Salvation Army distributions for the past 21 years. “This year, we’re down at least 50 requests. But the phones have been ringing.”
Lucas said The Salvation Army, Lihu‘e Corps received more than 200 requests for assistance, a decrease from the more than 250 requests the Army received last year.
He said during his 21-year tenure helping with the family distributions, the worst was about three, or four years ago when the requests topped 370 requests.
But as requests have dropped, so have the contributions which come into The Salvation Army to enable the distributions.
“We’re getting a special contribution from the Toys for Tots people, Saturday,” said Major Mario Reyes of The Salvation Army. “This is to supplement our regular Toys for Tots program.”
He said he just got off the phone with the Big Kmart to arrange for gift cards to help fulfill the request lists for the toy programs.
“We’re giving people gift cards so they can go out and fulfill the lists,” Reyes said. “We just didn’t get enough to fill the lists. The Toys for Tots program fell short by a thousand toys and the Angel Tree came up short by more than 150 toys.”
Reyes said The Salvation Army tries to give presents to people picking up the distribution packages.
“The packages vary by individual and families, but primarily it has gift cards to Foodland stores to help them get food on the table,” Reyes said. “We try to give a toy to each child.”
The Salvation Army will continue to maintain its Red Kettles through Christmas Eve. People interested in helping can call the Lihu‘e Corps, located at 4182 Hardy Street, at 245-2571, or the Hanapepe Corps, located at 4465 Puolo Road in Hanapepe, at 335-5441.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
