Aloha Harvest

HUGE shoutout to Aloha Harvest. A couple of months ago, I had volunteered for the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism food drive. It was so well organized and it felt so great to help our furloughed hotel workers.After the event, I had reached out to Phil, their Executive Director to see if I would be able to schedule an event for our company. They were booked up through the end of the year and so he put me in touch with Ami, their Project Coordinator.She said that she would put me on a waitlist. I appreciated the effort, but really wasn't expecting to hear back.A few weeks later Ami called me and told me they had a last minute cancellation and asked if I were still interested in hosting an event. I was so grateful for the call.We just had our event this weekend. Ami was so great to work with. She also put me in touch with Jay, who was their awesome data specialist. He helped us with the electronic survey and RSVP. They were both so awesome to work with.We had partnered with the Waikiki Community Center. We were able to distribute food to 200 of our team members plus 100 of early education and residents of Ainahau Vista Senior Housing.It was probably the best day I've had since the start of the pandemic. We were able to see our awesome team members that we haven't seen in eight months. They were so very grateful for this kind gesture.I am so thankful to have met Phil, Ami and Jay. They are an amazing team and the work they do have been truly impactful to so many!If you want to do something that feels really great, go out and volunteer for one of these events. You can see and feel how much this means to the people who really need help now, more than ever.Please support this wonderful organization!!!

Thank you for supporting the people in Waipahu. I go to a food bank where I live and as I am waiting I see your truck. I really appreciate it so much! Mahalo plenty.From: Norvina T. Of Waipahu

The place is located on the 2nd floor of the bank. They accept small food donations as anything helps! Went up to the floor and dropped off some canned goods and they were happy to accept. If you have excess food that isn't open or expires soon, please send it there way as they do not only accept food donations from parties and other large events. Gotta appreciate what they do!

I'm a huge fan of Aloha Harvest!! The serve such an important cause, and I really really appreciate that they don't charge any fees to the people/organizations who receive the donated food. Speaking as someone who's donated to them both as an individual, and as part of an organization that's held food drives in partnership with them before, I can truly say that their staff are very nice & easy to work with...it just doesn't get any easier to donate. ;D They'll come over the same day you call (almost always), and they accept both non-perishable AND perishable foods!! When my old freezer konked out last year, I ended up with 2 frozen turkeys & a slab of frozen baby back ribs thrown into a giant cooler. (And before you ask, I also had another slab of ribs that I ended up defrosting for dinner, so we thought of that too!) One quick call to Aloha Harvest, and a truck was at my house within a couple of hours. The driver was super nice, very efficient, and gone in less than 2 minutes. Doesn't get much better than that! =)

For the longest time, a close group of friends would get together the Friday after Thanksgiving and we would have a big leftovers potluck party. This allowed us to spend that special day before with family and plus a lot of the gobble, gobble foods are better the next day! As time went on, Black Friday intruded on our get together and so we now do a holiday brunch on Sunday catered at someone's house. There's always a ton of food leftover and no one has any space in their fridge for doggie bag plates. So we give to Aloha Harvest. You can visit their website for the history and services of this amazing organization. Too many in our community go hungry. When we found out that Aloha Harvest would make good use of our leftovers by "rescuing" them to feed the hungry, it was even easier to pass on doggie bag plate. They do this all year round, big or small kind, so please consider when you are having a get together. Happy holidays one and all!