Everybody forest here ripping a box of 2022 select football hobby for Jeffrey H Appreciate the order Jeffrey is always good luck man Dairy Mathis got tricolor sweet level Justin Herbert to 149 nice number to her be JJ Watts Silver premier level Patrick Mahomes sauce gardener. Oh my god, dude Kenny Pickett one of ten Color wheel rookie SSP. That is a gold color wheel Jeffrey H Holy Crab Jeffrey Hell yeah, man Worth the wait on this one. Sorry. I had to wait a little longer What a banger late night banger one out of ten Kenny Pickett Huge huge Hushed to snapshot silver field levels DJ Moore. Let's go into it Tyree kill Joe burrow with a concourse rookie light blue to 199 taekwondo orton They Devin McCordy Patriots Super Bowl auto and I just like that one a lot actually D-Mack well, let's see what else this box has tricolor concourse at 249 Darren Waller Silver premier level Amon Ross St. Brown Ritter premier level base with a silver concourse rookie Eric is a conma. How many highlights have you watched so far on? Premier level blue Christian McCaffrey Number two 149 Silver rookie premier level Charles Cross Silver snapshots is Josh Allen silver rookie club level Bernard Raymond silver concourse to Fonte Williams NFL Blitz again concourse orange Kyle Pitts. That's out of 49 White silver concourse rookie Malik Willis Hold level Christian Watson. There's a Kenny Pickett to 199 rookie Jersey auto now there is damage right here And there's like a scratch on the front unfortunately on that one Jeffrey So I'm gonna send a box and ever so you can try to get down replaced Yeah, noticeable like lifted like part of the edge there scratch I mean it's not it's not it's a scratch. It's not good, but that that that damage edges pretty bad So let me grab a box chopper for you Jeffrey Sorry about that, man Silver sweet level is burrow And George Pickett is now out of 99 all in the rookie Jersey Just like to see good box there Jeffrey Congrats again on that picket 10 silver concourse ad Brown And one more time before I mag it one of 10 color wheel Kenny Pickett Thanks, buddy. We'll get him out to you


Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmers Series. I'm your co-host Matt Johnson here today with Justine Espiritu. First time since September 29th. Yeah, since we've both been here so we're happy to be back again. As always, we're here every Thursday talking to Hawaii's movers and shakers in our local ag community. If you want to join the conversation, please start tweeting in at thinktechhi.com and if you want to see the show again and again, we'll be up on the YouTube channel, ThinkTech Hawaii. Justine, you want to go ahead and introduce our guest today? Thanks Matt. So today we have Joey Char, who is a land asset manager for Kamehameh schools, overseeing an ag park on the windward side, Punaluu. So he's here to talk about some of the things that's going on over there. It was started in 2012 and there's a couple different growers and operations and there's been some new developments and a lot going on. So we get to have Joey here to kind of explain that, give your background with kind of managing a project like this and let us know what's going on. So thanks for joining us. Hi Justine, hi Matt. Thanks for having me on the show. So one word, we don't like to use the word development in Punaluu. That's something that doesn't sit well with the community. So I don't know where we would use it, but we don't want to send the wrong message. Community, building a community. Yes. Great. So what can I tell you about Punaluu Valley? So as an ag park it started in 2012, so that's not too long ago. So if you kind of want to start with the impetus and the purpose of this specific piece. Okay. So a little bit of history. Punaluu Valley is a part of the statewide legacy lands that Princess Bernice Pawahi Bishop endowed a trust with known as Kamehameh schools whose mission is to educate Native Hawaiian people. So the valley is a true ahapua. It's 3,600 acres. It runs from the ocean all the way up to the top of the ko'olau. And it's been an ag pre-cont, since pre-contact days. So it was started as ag, you know, traditionally lo'i. You know what I mean? It was a bread basket for that side of the island back in the day. And then it was rice, mainly farmers rice when Chinese immigrants came to Hawaii. Then after that it was put into sugar cane production when James Castle leased the valley as a part of his sugar operation. And then in 2000 the land came back to Kamehameh schools, basically an in-house management. So KS took the land back and became an active steward of it. And that really, 2000 is really when the ag part concept came into being. And since then Kamehameh schools has invested quite a bit of money in terms of putting in an irrigation system. And we've got about 25 farmers there farming about 175 acres currently. We have about 350 acres total, so there's a lot of room for growth in terms of bringing more ag into the ahapua. It's always going to be ag because in March 2015 we petitioned the state and were granted the important ag lands designation. So Kamehameh schools made the commitment to keeping the land in ag in perpetuity. So it's almost kind of like an easement on the property saying that it has to be in agricultural use where it can't be rezoned or redeveloped for anything else? Yes, meaning if we ever wanted to do something other than ag with it it would be very difficult because we made it difficult for ourselves by pursuing that designation. No, that's great. And that's a large part of Kamehameh schools mission in bringing more local agriculture throughout the entire state. So like you said, kind of developing these ag parks. Are there other ag parks throughout the state on Kamehameh schools land? Yeah, I don't know if we don't really use the word ag park, but there's ag land. So the endowment has about 364,000 acres total. It's the largest private landowner in the state of Hawaii. And the bulk of it is either ag or conservation land. So most people recognize the commercial part of it, the Ili Waikiki Rohe Hawaiian Shopping Center. But really the vast majority of the land holdings are in agriculture and conservation. So there's ag operations throughout the state, you know, on Kaua'i, Maui, Hawaii Island and Oahu primarily, and Molokai. So yeah, there's ag operations all over. But then with this one specifically, it's smaller parcels, giving up in smaller parcels for small farmers specifically with diversified agriculture. Is that kind of unique? Yeah. So, well, I don't know if it would be unique. It would really be the idea that it's all one giant TMK that we've taken and divided into, arbitrarily divided into parcels of 5 to 10 acres. And again, TMK means... Tax map keys. So the... Just like a land designation. Land designation. So from the city's perspective, that's how they charge taxes, you know, real property tax. So we have 17 or so farmers actively farming right now, and they grow a wide variety of crops. Anything that they can sell, they'll grow. So, you know, diversified egg, vegetables, fruits, beetle leaf, which is a product that they... So a lot of our farmers are Southeast Asian immigrants, and they grow this product called beetle leaf. But really, from our perspective, trying to move the needle on local food production is really... One of the primary goals of getting the land into active production. Is also local production as well as local consumption of that? I thought that might have been a goal of that as well. Yeah, I think that that would be a great goal, hopefully, that everybody would strive for. I mean, we can't control what people buy, but hopefully, if more local produce is put into the grocery stores, then people will buy it. And the more people that buy it will increase demand, so more farmers will get into growing it. And hopefully, it'll just exponentially increase in that way. So, I mean, being a farmer, one of the hardest things to do is actually to get on the land. So this is a great opportunity. What's that process look like if somebody who's watching the show right now is interested in farming up on the loo? What's that process look like? Is it open to anyone who says they want to come on and farm? Are there requirements? What's that process look like? So, Justine, those first hand, put a little... You're going to go on a tour with Joey. It's not the easiest place to farm, so I actually turn away more people than we bring in, because you want to set farmers up for success. So when you say it's not the easiest place, what do you mean? So, geographically, it's located in the middle of the windward side, so it's not...  So it's not the easiest place to get your crops to market. But beyond that, it's also topographically. It's, you know, the land that I've shown Justine is not the... You know, she basically looked at it and said, you want me to farm this? It looked like you needed to flatten things, but because at that time, too, there was all the flat area up in the front, was they were getting, not evicted, but the stream... It's being kept fallow in anticipation of a stream restoration project that we're still in the process of getting permitted. But the land, you know, but the land is good. The farmers that make it there love it there. Great land, great water, but you got to know what you're doing. So, you know, I usually ask four questions. I don't know if I ask these... Did you even get to the question? I was like, ah, I'm out of here. But usually based on the answers of these four questions, I kind of know whether or not they're right. And the first one is, what do you want to grow? Second one is, what is your experience growing it? Third one is, where are you going to sell it? And if they get past the first three, then the fourth one I usually ask is, why do you want to farm in Punaluu? Because you could farm in a lot of places in Punaluu. I don't want to scare anybody away, but it's not, you know, again, it's not the easiest place to farm. But if you can make it there, you could make it anywhere. But it is, well, I'm excited to know that there's a couple GoFarm graduates that are there and some other folks. And they're doing very well. Which also makes me curious, have you said Southeast Asian immigrants? And I know of the GoFarm, but is the diversity of the farmers, is it a lot of people that have been going for a long time? Or is it a lot of new farmers? Is it a mix or more so? It's a mix. What's really encouraging to me is that the farmers who are there are younger, younger-ish, younger than me. And that's really encouraging, you know, because like Robert and Latasha, you know, who are graduates in your class of GoFarm, they've got a really nice one-acre organic parcel that they're really doing well. What kind of stuff are they growing? Oh, God, you know, corn, beets, kale, corn. Tomatoes? They're called the tomato farm. They really know what they're doing, and they're making a really good go of it. And so getting more farmers like them through programs like GoFarm and just networking. I mean, that's what's been really cool as we bring people on, of really seeing this pipeline that's kind of developing in Hawaii to bring that increase in producers. Yeah, and so I think having more farmers like Robert and Latasha, Dave Berlu, and a lot of other farmers that are really doing well. And then you've got more experienced guys like Ted Nakamura, who's got some land in Punaluu. And then the most recent one, which they haven't gotten on the land yet, but the Mahiai match-up winner for this year, Mahauulu, is going to take one of the Kahana side parcels that they're going to turn into an Ulu orchard. And so there's a lot of promising upside. So a year from now, let's talk about it. And that's great where you have different programs. We're thinking about schools because I think you're recognizing that, you know, it takes more than just having access to land. You have the Mahiai match-up where we had Kalani on the show before talking about the program, where it's a competition, business plan competition, where applicants are applying for access to land. So there's some type of lease agreement for five years, something like that. Yeah, that they don't pay rent so that they are able to get their operation off the ground because you can imagine an Ulu orchard, it's probably three years minimum before you even see any fruit, probably more than that. And so the idea of the program is to help them just get off the ground and get established and part of the competition is to reward them with seed money that they can use to get the operation started. It seems like a real holistic approach where it's saying, okay, we have this ag land and then there's also resources to help you financially and making sure that they have a good plan going into it to give them as much opportunity for success. That's fantastic. Yeah, and I would really, that's a great point because I would encourage anybody that wants to call me as a result of the show interested in Punaluu, having a business plan really helps a lot. I mean, it really helps put on paper what they might be envisioning for themselves as a farmer. And if you can make it work on paper, then at least you've got a good shot at making it work in real life. And I think it's great. I think KS as a landowner is a lot more collaborative in that effort than people sometimes think. Yeah. So we're actually going to take a quick 60 second break and then we'll kind of get into some new developments that's going on. Okay. Thanks. I'm Ethan Allen, host of likeable science here on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., you'll have a chance to come and listen and learn from scientists around the world. Scientists who talk about their work in meaningful, easy to understand ways. And you come to appreciate science as a wonderful way of thinking, way of knowing about the world. You'll learn interesting facts, interesting ideas. You'll be stimulated to think more. Please come join us every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii for likeable science with me, your host Ethan Allen. Hello, and aloha. My name is Raya Salter, and I am the host of Power of Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to figure out how we're going to work towards a clean and renewable energy future. We have exciting conversations with all kinds of stakeholders, everyone who needs to come together to talk about renewable energy, be they engineers, advocates, lawyers, utility executives, musicians or artists, to see how we can come together to make a renewable future. Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Aloha, and welcome back to the Hawaii Food and Farmers series. I'm your co-host, Justine Asguratu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. So happy to be reunited. Happy to be back. Today's guest is Joey Char, the land asset manager for Kamehameh Schools, and we're talking specifically about punaloo. So we talk about some of the different farmers, some of the different products, and I'm curious to hear some new efforts. You're kind of cultivating one to be more collaborative with who is farming there, as well as maybe some new initiatives of helping them bring the product into the community. So maybe related to ag, we have... So punaloo as a natural and cultural resource has so much upside potential because there's a lot of history, a lot of moalelo that goes back generations in terms of who lived there, what happened there, what was farmed there, how did they do it. And one of the programs that we're going to be bringing to life in the next year or so is a cultural restoration project where there's three large hay-out complexes there, actually four. And part of the program that we're working on is to engage the community with restoring, helping us restore and melama these sites. And that kind of ties into the greater KS mission, if you will, in terms of incorporating Hawaiian culture into the curriculum that the endowment is, the mission of the endowment is to educate Native Hawaiian people. So educating Hawaiian culture and values into the curriculum is one of the objectives. And doing INA-based teaching and opportunities on the land for people to engage in is one way of creating that synergy in punaloo. The same before the show, I thought it was really interesting that you're a guy coming from commercial development before, you were with Bank of Hawaii before, and then you transitioned over to Kamehameha Schools as an asset manager. And you're really kind of the guy on the ground that's interfacing between the mission of Kamehameha Schools, the cultural traditions, education, and then finding the right mix of farmers who need to come on and actually make it a viable business of really connecting all those pieces. And I think it's fantastic what you're doing and also tying in with my AI match-up. So there's a lot of these pieces that make it more complex, but I think overall it's more what, especially a community like punaloo, is looking for. Yeah, I think the name of the place I think sums it up well. It's actually punaloo ahapua'a farms. So punaloo obviously is the place. Ahapua'a tells you that there's more going on here than just farming. Now farms obviously is the ag component of it, but there's many different wonderful working pieces in the ahapua'a that have yet to be fully realized. And so there's, again, I really consider punaloo a diamond in the rough because there's so many things that can and will happen there, it just takes time to get them going. The land's always been there, so it's not like we have to be in a rush to do it. We just want to make sure we do it right. And connecting those three concepts, punaloo, ahapua'a, and farms to the immediate community and the community at large, really is one of the main objectives and one of the wonderful things that we hope to be able to do there. And so you had mentioned some other activities that you want to see happening in ahapua'a, connecting it to the farm. What were some of the other things that you want to see happening? So should we talk about CSA? Come on as well. Give a lot of fresh and good plugs. I mean, always. Yeah. My personal real, my real immediate goal is to try and get a CSA started in punaloo because we have the farming going on there. We've got a very vibrant, active community there, so it just makes so much sense to connect people that live in the community with food grown in the community. And a CSA seems like a natural evolution of that idea. It's just a matter of getting it off the ground, finding the right mix and the right chemistry. And hopefully, you know, if we talk a year from now, that might actually be happening. Another interesting thing culturally-wise, I just firm this up today, is that we're planning on doing a traditional board and stone class, I think in February. And this is where one of our cultural practitioners, Earl Kovah, a great guy, very, very knowledgeable, strong mana in this man. He's going to be, you know, he teaches these classes all over the island through Kikioka Aina. And we're just talking about doing one of those in punaloo where people from the community will be invited to sign up, and you, I think it'll be like an 11 or 12-week commitment. But you get to learn how to make a traditional poi board, a papakuii and a paku, the poi ponder. And the wonderful thing about it is all of these materials, you know, there's a ko'i that you make out of a hao branch to carve the board, which traditionally is monkey pod or mango, and a stone that you carve into the shape of the poi ponder. All these materials we plan on gathering from the aapwa. So it's a wonderful way to connect the community to the land with the practice, the cultural practice. And it's intended to be a family-oriented activity. And so I think it's going to be, and I haven't gone through the class, I can say, it's just really a wonderful way of connecting the culture to people with the land and ultimately food because you use it to pound, tower, and deploy. And so workshops like that have already happened in other spaces, and this is just a new venue for it? Yes. That's a well-established program that when I went through the class, I just thought, you know, we need to be doing this kind of thing and put a little, and so hopefully, two months from now, we will be. That's great. One thing I want to make sure we talk about, too, it's a little, I guess, on the side, but we've been involved with the upcoming Hawaii Ag Conference. You want to talk a little bit about that and some of the plans around that? Yeah, so you and I are both on the planning committee and we haven't nailed the date down. We're thinking August of 2017 is probably when it's going to happen, but the Hawaii Ag, Hawaii Agricultural Leadership Foundation of Hawaii is the sponsor and presenter of this statewide Ag Conference that the hope is to get anybody interested in ag, yes, farmers, yes, producers, yes, distributors, even the general population who just has an interest in locally grown food, get them engaged in this conference and start active dialogue about how we can make Hawaii more food self-sustainable. I mean, we're still working out the theme, but I believe we're gravitating in that direction in terms of just trying to get a more active interest in local ag because, you know, with HC&S closing down, sugar is basically its extinct come now. And so getting all of that land back into production, not just HC&S's land, but KS's lands, the other li'i trusts who have ag lands. I mean, there's a lot of ag land in Hawaii that I don't think it's a matter of lack of the resource. I just think it's really more lack of farmers and a lack of market, you know, demand that's going to inspire a farmer to inspire somebody to choose farming as a career as opposed to something else because they know that they can make a living wage doing it. I'm curious, as you guys are planning this conference, are you thinking of or looking to the new policy that Igay proposed of doubling, or whatever the percentage is now, doubling of food production? Yeah, is that getting intertwined in this conference? Is this going to like propose some plans for that? Or is it secret? You're not even ahead but not saying anything. Well, I was going to let our guests answer, but we actually want to think that was part of the conversation where we look at that and we're saying, wow, there's government officials saying these things. And I think anybody that is working in the ag industry, you know, here's a statement like that. It's like, well, there's so many components to that. Like, what does that even mean? You know, increasing food production. You know, we're talking about just street calories. Are we talking, what kind of food are we talking about? And do we even have a firm idea of what the amount of production even is right now? So that's definitely part of the conversation. And we're still trying to figure out the appropriate way to invite government officials to that venue as a way for them, not to put them on the spot. They're like, hey, what was this? How is this going to happen? But I think it's a good opportunity to have that conversation. And that's a challenge we're having as a planning committee, is when you say local agriculture, I mean, everybody has kind of their own definition. You know, are we talking about food? If we're talking about food, what are we talking about? A lot of times, and I know with the Ag Leadership Foundation, which is hosting the event, they include horticulture as agriculture. So just kind of defining what that means, I think is going to be part of our challenge, but also the challenge for everyone that's kind of coming, that's going to be attending the conferences, for them to figure that out as well, and kind of go from there. Yeah, I went to this presentation that Jeff Milrose was the presenter. Yeah, the Planner Day. Did you go there? Yeah, it was great. He did a great job. And one of the things that really stuck with me was he said, a lot of times when people think agriculture, they think food. And that's... I think it was when people say food, they automatically think vegetables. Yeah, yeah. But that could mean cattle, that could mean a number of things. It could be chicken if you make eggs. I mean, there's so many other things that go beyond vegetables. And so I think that was a really interesting point, because as we plan this conference and try to drill down to, what are we actually going to put as the content of this thing? Answering those types of questions are really what we are trying to do right now so that come actual conference, there really is a clear objective of having it. So yeah, I mean, there's a lot of work to do with that. But it's exciting. I think it's an interesting time to be involved in ag. I mean, you could be scared by what's happening right now or you can be energized by it in the sense of not knowing what's going to happen could be a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of opportunity that could come out of this void that we seem to be kind of in right now.  Like how do you make it more participatory and more involved? You know, that's definitely the challenge and something we're hoping to address with the conference. And that would be great for anybody watching this to really, if you have an interest in agriculture, you should be coming to this conference and even better, help us plan. You know, get on, get involved with us now because if there's a topic you think is worthwhile for the state to be investigating, then you should be on this planning committee with us and just be a part of it. So we have to wrap it up right there. Thanks so much for coming and thank you for volunteering to host the show that gives the update on the conference and post conference. Thank you so much. We're happy to have you as a co-host. Thank you everyone for being here today. Thank you.


Well, good afternoon and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where I'm the host of non-profits mean business too. And so today, we have the very fortunate experience of being able to interview a local non-profit that does a lot of great things for the community. I'm going to let Leslie, who is a spokesperson for this non-profit. The name of course is, tell me with that. Aloha Harvest. Thank you. God, I have to hear my notes. So thank you. Aloha Harvest. So Leslie, why don't you tell us a little bit about the mission of Aloha Harvest? Sure. So Aloha Harvest is a food rescue and redistribution non-profit. We were founded in 1999. And the idea behind it is that hunger is not an issue of scarcity of resources. It's an issue of the distribution system for food being wasteful and inequitable. So in Hawaii, one in five people relies on food pantries for assistance, but at the same time we throw away about 26% of our local food supply every year. That comes out to 237,000 tons of food that's perfectly good being thrown into the landfill when we have so many people who are facing food insecurity. So that's why Aloha Harvest exists. We pick up excess food from places like grocery stores, hotels, restaurants, wholesale distributors, catering companies. And we have about 250 different people we pick up food from per year. And then we redistribute it seven days a week free of charge to non-profits and social service agencies that are feeding the hungry. And we have about 175 of those partners who are the recipients. Wow, that's impressive. I remember going over some of those stats with you in the beginning. I think the terminology that you use is not widely known to a lot of people. So what exactly is food rescue? Yeah, so food rescue is recognizing the fact that we don't use all of the food that we produce. So it's basically the term rescue means that food we produce often, even though it's still good. So we're talking about bananas that are maybe starting to get a little spotty and get taken off the shelves. We're talking about cereal boxes that get dented in transport and so are never put on the shelves. Yogurt, that's like a day out from its best by date. I would still eat it. I would still feed it to anyone. So it's that kind of food that just because there's no way for these businesses to sell it, it gets thrown away. And so instead we step in and we're protected from liability as well as the donors by state and federal legislation. So we step in, yeah, we rescue that food and then we get it out for free because it's not going to be sold anyway. And we get it out for free to the people who are feeding those in need. That's so amazing. And what would you say that it is that it's needed? Why is food rescue even necessary? Yeah, it has several different areas of impact that I think make it so necessary. The first one being just obviously again the issue of hunger. So if you zoom out globally, I mentioned the statistic that one in five people in Hawaii, you know, depends on food pantries for assistance, but we're throwing away about 26% of our available food globally. We throw away about a third of all the food that we produce and the UN has put out as statements several years ago that if we were to capture, rescue, redistribute all that food we throw away, we could solve world hunger. I think it's four times over, four or five times over. So that's why it's necessary because we have the resources to fix this problem. It's just the work of changing our mindset about it in our distribution system. So that's really our goal is not just getting people fed, but helping to spread awareness of the fact that it's even an issue that food, so much food is being wasted while people are going hungry. So that's the first most obvious area of impact. And then there's also an environmental and economic impact. So on the environmental side, rotting food in the landfill produces methane, which is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So the more food that we divert from the landfill and put to good use, the more we can lessen our footprint in greenhouse gas emissions. And then finally, as you know, we import so much of our food and we spend lots of money to get it here. So the facts that we are spending money on importing food via plane and ship and everything and then turning around and throwing it away. We're literally throwing away dollars when we do that. So again, when we can put that to good use and it's second life, you know, if it doesn't get sold, then we are building up and strengthening more resilient community and actually getting our worth out of the dollars that we spend to get food here. I absolutely love that. I when I heard what you do and how you do it, it's just it makes so much sense. And the fact that you guys are doing it and you're so very passionate about it. I really I love that as well. And so where does a lot of you mentioned where some of this food comes from? I know you're working with various restaurants, hotels, even people who grow food. And then how has COVID-19 affected Aloha's operations? It's a great question. During COVID-19, the past two months, we have really gone into overdrive and kind of our amazing executive director, Phil Acosta, he's taken an approach that I just think has been essential where instead of kind of like pausing or hanging back and being like, oh, we have to adjust and pause. He was like, well, we have to adjust and move forward because there were already so many people who were food insecure before this. And we know as unemployment is peaking that even more people than ever are in need of free food. So in March, we doubled the amount of food that we rescued compared to March of last year. And then in April, we're just wrapping up those numbers. We increased by 78 percent. And that is probably a temporary spike in excess food, just as everyone on the food supply chain was scrambling to, you know, people were having to close, people were having to change hours, convert to takeout. So ironically, even though the number of people struggling with hunger was increasing, there was actually even more food that if food rescue wasn't in place, would have just been thrown away because there was nothing to do with it as they were trying to adjust. So we were able to increase the amount of food that we rescued. And that's opened up a lot of different collaborative partnerships in order to actually, you know, double the amount that we're not only capturing, but then where does it go? Like how to partner with people to make sure it gets out into the communities where it's needed. You know, I'm fortunate enough to be belong to one of those organizations that that you contribute to. And I and I got to tell you, being on the front lines, it's an amazing experience to be able to bring this resource into the community. And it it does. It makes a huge difference. I was surprised by the amount of people that that were in need and are willing to come out and and receive this wonderful gift that that you guys are redistributing. So I just I can't say enough great things about what Aloha Harvest is doing. So you so you mentioned that there has there been an increase or decrease in the new and the need for food rescue? Yeah, there's definitely been an increase. I did mention that I think that the spike in excess food is temporary because people will adjust and acclimate the amount of food that they're ordering and how it's distributed, you know, on the on their ends. But we are actually increasing beyond just food rescue temporarily in response to COVID-19 because the need is there. So one partnership that has been amazing and a primary part of our COVID-19 response has been Chef Huey Tons Aloha Harvest. And I know, you know, Amanda was Chef Huey and they're amazing. Amanda and Mark, just a group of chefs and people involved in the restaurant and food industry who already before COVID-19 just kind of recognize the fact that chefs have a powerful piece to play in in the community. Food is such an essential piece, whether you're struggling with hunger or not. You know, it's just an essential piece of community. So they had already been a good Huey. And then we partnered with them to basically help process all that extra excess food that we were getting in March. And that was also with Pacific Gateway Center. They're another nonprofit. They offered up dry and cold storage space as well as they have a kitchen incubator and allowed us to start using their kitchen so that for the first time, we were actually starting to store food overnight and also with Chef who he's Chef who he's helped start to prepare it before we redistributed because prior to COVID, we would never store stuff overnight. We're always same day in our refrigerator trucks, pick up, drop same day. And so we've adjusted to move into a little storage, some cooking with Chef Huey and through Chef who just opened up a much many more distributions channels right where the food can go. Malama meals has also been amazing. They were our top recipient of rescued food for the past two months. Wow, that's I I'm just blown away that, you know, it's really an amazing thing that you guys get to be a part of each and every day. Can you talk a little bit more in detail about your collaboration with Chef Huey? Yeah, basically, they, as I mentioned, just provided a lot of like at the beginning of our collaboration, it was just a lot of general support for each other's thing. What do we do? What do you do? And how do we need to fuse to respond to what's happening with COVID-19? So right now we're in a phase where they are regularly cooking meals out of not only Pacific Gateway Center, which is in downtown Honolulu, but they've actually expanded to two other satellite kitchen. And they are now also cooking out of Open Kitchen Oahu in Waimea Valley and Konobruing Company in East Oahu. So, you know, kind of more coverage on the island of where food is being cooked, because again, that's something that oftentimes would be left to our recipient agencies before COVID. So, you know, our recipients range all across the board. It includes social service agencies, youth empowerment programs, where the focus isn't hunger, but the focus is on youth who may have dropped out of high school and are getting their education and also can't afford to bring lunch. And so when we can provide that piece, it enables them to focus on what they need to focus on. A lot of places that did have kitchens that were up and running, that were using it to prepare excess food that now aren't, you know, because they've had to scale back or whatever. So the fact that now we have three really strong connected kitchens where we can funnel rescued food is amazing. And for April with Chef Houli, they processed about 30,000 pounds of food and about 19,000 of those pounds were rescued food that went into the kitchens, got prepared, got repackaged into like either Ohana bags or, you know, plate lunches and then sent back out. Wow, that, I don't even, speechless. That's a great thing. I mean, when you get an opportunity to participate in the community in that way. The other thing that you'd mentioned, so it sounds like your operation is expanding because you now have these other centers where you can make better use of the food that you're getting and repackaging it. So that's an interesting idea and concept. So you're getting in all this food. So where do all these hands come from? Yeah, it's really been, like I said, since we had, since we already had a network of 175 recipient agencies in place, a lot of them have been involved, a lot of support from people connected with Chef Houli, so volunteers they brought in. We have an amazing base of volunteers. And then just a lot of like we've provided support for pop up grassroots distributions where there's already people, whether they're directly connected to an agency or not, who are popping up and setting things up. And then we just come in and support as needed. So. Wow, so that's a good, so if, so would an organization then just reach out to you and say we're interested in participating or being recipients of some of that repurposed food that you're referring to? Yes, and that information is on our website at alohaharvest.org. We're encouraging people to go through there or just to email our general info at alohaharvest.org for now, because we're not in the office all the time anymore with working from home. But basically on our website, there's a simple intake form where you can apply to receive rescued food. There's food safety guidelines. There's that information I mentioned about protection from liability. So I would encourage anyone who wants to receive can go through there. You know, being in the insurance industry and understanding the nature of liability, that's such a huge piece. And it really, I think is the impetus for allowing these different organizations to give as freely as they are. So that's amazing. And we could certainly talk about that at some point. So let's talk about what are some of the current projects that you have in the works? Yeah, actually I did just see, I wasn't sure if right now was a good time if you wanted to go on that break. And then we could return to that after. Yeah, you know, she will, one minute to break, she says, so. Oh, okay. We can break at any time. Let's go ahead and do that now. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My show is based on my book, also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness. I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going Beyond the Lines leads to success in everything you do in life. I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11 a.m. Aloha. Welcome back to our show. We are talking to Aloha Harvest and Leslie Pio is their representative who very well versed on the subject and I gotta tell you, I'm very impressed with everything that they do over there. And so Leslie, you wanted to talk a little bit about some of the current projects that you have going on in the works. Yeah. So a couple that are cool to highlight because I know you're directly connected to one is that, as I mentioned, we've worked with groups that are doing pop-up distributions. And so we started working on distributions in Palo Alto and Papakoleo and Waimanalo. And I'd love to offer you, Brandon, if you'd like to just talk about your involvement with the distribution at Palo Alto and what you've seen there. Well, what I can tell you is that I'm just always blown away and amazed about the kind of food that you guys bring to us to distribute. And we've gotten such things as MREs. We've gotten, we always get fresh eggs. We get fresh produce. We get just a variety of amazing food that can be made into meals. I've seen potatoes, I've seen onions. My wife who does all the shopping for our house often comments about that as well because she's very aware of the price of everything. And so food is one of the more expensive items here in Hawaii and especially fresh produce. And you guys deliver in spades on that. And it brings such a joy to my heart when we're able to distribute such high quality food. I'm meals ready to eat. The MREs I mentioned, but also the meals that are pre-prepared. We've gotten meals from mud and honey. We got a meatloaf mashed potato meal that all you had to do is warm it and serve it to your family. We got, there was a pasta meal with chicken and pasta and cream sauce. I think you may have gotten that from Foodland.  All you have to do was warm them. I remember one of the recipients looking down into what they were receiving and they're like, oh, I'm gonna make that tonight. And I was like, wow, you know? It's just, it's very impactful when you're on the front lines end and you get to see the people and how grateful they are to receive that food. So bravo. You brought up so many good opportunities for me to highlight some of our supporters like you mentioned the eggs that comes from Eggs Hawaii. They were actually our number one food donor in April. And I think they were in our top three for March. Foodland was our number one that we rescued food from in March and our number two in April. So we pick up from 17 sites for Foodland. So shout out to them. We love that they're such a big proponent of like not wasting the food that doesn't end up getting sold. And the MREs came from FEMA. And what you talked about with the fresh produce that has been another cool current project we're working on in that. We already rescued from many farms before COVID before farmers markets were shut down. We were set up at four farmers markets where at the end of the day offenders instead of having to figure out what to do with all their produce that they didn't sell could just pass it on to us and we would deliver it to an agency. But a new problem that's popped up that we've worked to address is just providing support for the existing like typical food supply chain. So outside of food rescue, our food industry is hurting, especially our local ag producers. And so we have worked with Chef Hui in large part to secure grants and fundings to start being able to not only rescue produce that's going on sold from local farms but to actually help pay for some of that as well so that they're supported through this as well as the people on the other end receiving the food. So we're really excited to be able to do that. And there've just been, I wanna specifically highlight the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation. They are helping provide funding for our staying at Pacific Gateway Center. We partnered with the city and county of Honolulu to do the first mass food distribution. It was that YPO soccer complex and we gave out 1,000 bags of ready to go. It provided food for I think six to eight families of six to eight people. Everything you need like for groceries and for making a special soup. Yeah, there's several more I could highlight. You can always go on our website and see our Mahalo banner but those are some of the ones I specifically wanted to say thank you too. That's great. And then the whole coordination of all this logistics that goes on behind the scenes so that all this can happen. That is another amazing feat. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Sure, that's a great opportunity to say we have the best operations manager in the world. Her name is Melle and she's been with Aloha Harvest for 10 years. So she's really like the heart and soul behind so much of what happens. And it's actually a small team which is pretty cool. We just hired a data and communication specialist this month, but prior to that it was just Phil, our executive director, Melle, our operations manager and I'm the community resource coordinator. So we're the office and then we have about eight drivers who are out there seven days a week. Everybody loves them, you know, everybody gives them a honk when they see them on the road.  That's amazing. Well, you have a very, I'm impressed.  So how does, wow, that's amazing. And then you coordinate all the volunteer effort as well. Yes, which I can say, I know some people listening to this might be wanting to volunteer. And I would encourage you to go to alohaharvest.org slash volunteer. There is a note on the website and I'll just say it now that we're in a transition period where, you know, as soon as COVID hit, we had to scale back or change or just pause a lot of our normal volunteer activities. And we're in the process of like basically bringing on new volunteer management software and creating adjusted opportunities that people can help with during COVID. So there's a short form for you to fill on our website. And as soon as our new system is up, I'll reach out to you and send you a link to register. In the meantime, volunteers who are already registered have still been able to help, but just it's been on a smaller scale until we can get our new system up. That's amazing. One of the things I'd like to find out a little bit more about as well is what kind of projects do you hope to achieve over the next several years? Yeah, that's a great question. We're very fortunate in that Phil, our executive director is very ambitious in his desire to get as many people fed as possible and to rescue as much food as possible. So within the next five years, he does have a goal of wanting to expand to the neighbor islands because, you know, lots of times we'll get questions like, oh, this is available here. And right now we're only on Oahu. So we would like to expand to the neighbor islands. We also would like to be able to have more of a resiliency hub where in a way COVID was the impetus for moving into things that were already on our like future dream list, like starting to have storage space, starting to partner more directly with people who can cook the rescued food before we give it. So I'd say our second big goal is storage and a hub where the food can be just better distributed and build up more long-term resiliency so that, because hunger is gonna remain, right? Even after this pandemic passes, it was there before it will be there after. And so just being able to use kind of the fact that this has put more of a spotlight on it and everyone's more aware of it and capitalize that in a way to be like, yeah. And so let's like get the systems in place to where we're ready to respond to the next one. And in the interim, we're able to better care for the people who were already in that boat before all this happened. That's just amazing. I mean, I guess we're getting close to the end of the show. And I just wanted to ask, how can the listeners support Aloha's harvest? That's a great question. Listeners can support really just taking stock of whatever resources you do have. If that is time, maybe going on our website, poking around, learning more, and deciding I'm gonna be an advocate for Aloha's harvest. So I'm just gonna start sharing this information. Maybe even once restaurants are back up and running, I always encourage people, ask your server, do you know about Aloha's harvest? And just be ready to give them the little three sentence pitch that's right on our about page of our website of who we are and what we do. If that's money, you can always donate as a nonprofit. Obviously, we always appreciate financial donations to help keep us running. If that's connections, feel free to reach out. Again, through our website, our contact information is there and say, hey, I run this business or I know this person and can I get you guys connected? Especially during COVID-19, that's been amazing. Just like an explosion of connections with people like you. So. Well, you're so nice. You know, I'm bitten by the bug. So you can assure that I'll be reaching out. We had a discussion earlier about some of the things that I want to become involved in to bring additional resources to bear. So it's an exciting time. It's an amazing bit of work that you're doing. And that's okay.  I mean, that's a huge thing. And I know that it's very near and dear to your hearts as well. I saw some things about that on your web page, but making sure that the people get fed. Yeah. That's very fortunate. And you are my very passionate advocate. And I think you do a great job for a law of harvest. I immediately bonded with you and I felt like you would be a great interviewee. And as it turns out, that's what happened. So it all worked out for the best. Is there anything else you'd like to highlight about the organization? I just want to say thank you. Thank you to all the listeners. And one of the biggest things I've seen working with the law of harvest during COVID-19 and even before is just seriously the power of our community. I moved here in September and I'm just so blown away by our community and how highly prioritized it is to care for each other and to not view it as give and take but just give. Like if I have more resources, I want to give so this other person can be more balanced out. And so I'm just really thankful to be here and thank you to our community. We're lucky to have you. And I feel the same way. So, you know, Hawaii is a unique place. It's a beautiful place. And the beauty is in the hearts of the people who live here. And we get to see that every day and I'm also very grateful. So thank you very much.