Page 5 - MidWeek - July 27, 2022

A t Aloha Harvest, our vision is simple and complex. Every day we strive for a resilient and sustainable Hawai‘i where hunger and food waste no longer exist. Over the last 22 years, we’ ve recovered 30 million pounds of food that would otherwise have been sent to landfills. Instead, the food was redirected to nour- ish the underserved through-
guess, the number of people in need has increased over the last couple of years. In fact, the food volume we’ ve been processing is up to four times more than it was pre-pandemic.
distributors and various food establishments to rescue quality food. And we provide our services, free of charge, through several hundred of our distribution partners in- cluding social service agen- cies, homeless shelters, food pantries and other charitable organizations.
Every little bit helps.
JULY 27, 2022 MIDWEEK 5
Redirecting Hawai‘i’s Surplus Food To The Needy
By Phil Acosta, executive director of Aloha Harvest
out O‘ahu.
While we celebrated this
Aloha Harvest is an O‘ahu-based nonprofit lead- ing the effort in food rescue and helping to build a re- generative food system. Our mission is to nourish and strengthen our community, working toward a vision of a resilient and sustainable Hawai‘i where food waste and hunger no longer exist. We collaborate with food do- nors such as grocery stores, restaurants, local farmers,
Aloha Harvest is always looking for volunteers, new community partners and donations to not only keep our services going, but also to improve the quality and quantity of food we rescue. We also hope to one day ex- pand our services beyond O‘ahu and serve the neigh- bor islands.
For every $1 donated, we are able to rescue and redis- tribute about 1.7 pounds of food. And every $20 donat- ed is the equivalent of more than 25 meals that we are able to save. We are happy to talk to individuals, orga- nizations and community partners to collaborate on solutions to reduce food in- security in Hawai‘i.
milestone this year, there is much more to be done to continue to serve the 1 in 6 people in Hawai‘i who cur- rently rely on food pantries for assistance. As you might
During the height of the pandemic, Aloha Harvest co-hosted hundreds of community-based food distributions and helped serve more than 100,000 households on O‘ahu. PHOTO COURTESY ALOHA HARVEST
For more information, to get involved or make a do- nation, visit alohaharvest.org or follow us on social media (@alohaharvest). You can also call our office at 808- 537-6945 or email us at info@alohaharvest.org.
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