Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Hawai'i Foodbank's Amy Miller on the annual City Employee Food Drive

Transcript

Hawai'i Foodbank's Amy Miller on the annual City Employee Food Drive · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

0:14
Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
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I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, May 8th, 2025.
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And we're joined this week by Amy Miller, president and CEO of the Hawaii
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Food Bank. And thanks so much for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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So first off, what are you seeing right now?
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What is the latest when it comes to the situation at the food bank?
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So we are seeing quite high levels of food insecurity in need.
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We did a study that we released last year about 1 in 3 households in Hawaii
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are facing food insecurity, meaning there's not enough food in the household
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for everybody to live in a healthy, active lifestyle.
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But even since we released that study, you know, and 1 in 3,
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that's a big number, right?
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Those are that's, you know, you're seeing me in a room.
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A third of the people could potentially be going hungry at night.
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And just in the time since we released
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that study, we've seen the numbers just tick up and up and up.
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Right now, we're serving,
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across the islands of Oahu, and quite yet almost 172,000 people on average
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per month here on Oahu, about 158,000 people on average per month.
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That's like what we saw during the height of the pandemic, and about twice
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the number of people that we were serving prior to the pandemic.
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So it's a pretty serious situation.
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And so what are we talking about?
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Is this kupuna?
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Is this like kids, like out of college
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that are trying to, like, buy a new place or, you know, find a home
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for the first time in their lives without their family?
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What are we talking about? It's all across the board.
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You know,
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I think we think of our most vulnerable populations as our keiki and our kupuna.
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But young adults, you know,
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people aged 18 to 29, almost half of them are food insecure.
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And the, the folks that are coming for the first time.
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So we've started to see more and more working families.
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These are people that are working one job to job, sometimes three jobs.
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They've always been able to make ends meet and they just can't do it anymore.
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So that's been kind of the hard thing that we're just seeing that people,
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you know, it's just that one extra thing and grocery
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prices have gone up a lot, you know, since the beginning of the pandemic.
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Prices for food at home, groceries are up,
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more than 30%.
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So it's just harder and harder to put a healthy dinner on the table
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for your family.
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That's why the food banks here. Right.
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And and our network of partners, we want no one.
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We don't want anybody to go to bed hungry at night.
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So hopefully they know that they can come to one of our partners.
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They can get healthy food, groceries.
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But the fact that we have,
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you know, so many in our community struggling, it's challenging.
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We thought it was a good time to get you on because the city and county
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and the state have an exciting relationship
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or competition, I guess, going on right now.
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But in partnership with the food bank, which includes,
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you know, asking city employees and then the public to help out as well.
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Anyone interested in donating food donations to the city can turn them into
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any satellite city hall or Honolulu fire station through Friday, May 9th.
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This campaign and these kind of efforts, what kind of dent does
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that make in the work that you do?
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So it's a huge support to all of us.
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I think one is just knowing that, gosh, our city and county employees
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who do so much are also helping to join in the fight against hunger,
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our city employees.
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I know that together
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we're the joint goal is over half a million meals.
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That's a lot, right? That's,
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half a million people that will be able to have a, you know, healthy meal.
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So it makes a big difference. It really does.
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And not just food.
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Folks can also make monetary donations to your organization.
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How can they do that?
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They can go to our website, Hawai'i Food bank.org.
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But and one of the nice things
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about monetary donations and I know people really like to give,
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I mean, one of the amazing things about Hawai'i is people really do
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help each other out there.
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Always, every time we've said, hey, we have need people give
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and it feels good to give food, right?
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But one of the cool things about Hawai'i Food Bank is
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we can really stretch a dollar.
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So we did a little research last year to just see like, okay,
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how far does our, you know, our dollar stretch
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compared to what any of us could do, you know, on our own, going to the supermarket
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because we're usually buying like at the container load.
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And we have these really great relationships both locally
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and on the continent where we can get very, very low cost, healthy food.
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And we found that our dollar stretches
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about, on average, about five times as far at the food bank
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than what any of us could do on our own at the grocery store. So,
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a really efficient
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way to make a gift is to to make your donation.
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Every dollar
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that we receive at Hawaii Food Bank allows us to provide more than two meals.
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So it makes a big difference.
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Every dollar counts. Sticking with money.
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A lot of federal aid has been cut to programs from coast to coast.
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Yeah.
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And all type of organization.
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What's been the effect on the food bank?
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So this is something we're watching really, really carefully.
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About 22% of our overall revenues come from the federal government.
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The the biggest impact we've seen so far is some of the food
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that we received through the USDA through a program called T fab,
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a very, you know, specific program.
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Last year, statewide, we received about $4 million worth of food
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through this program.
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And this is like expensive food, like
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proteins, frozen chicken, rice,
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vegetables, fruits.
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That source of food is has been canceled.
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So as we look into it and we've already started to see the impact we had, food
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that was scheduled to start to come April, May, June.
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That was those loads were canceled.
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So we're already, from an inventory perspective,
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we're lower than we usually are.
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We usually have 1.3 to 1.5 million pounds of food
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at any given time on our Oahu facility.
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Right now, we're below a million.
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And and the need kind of continues.
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So that's been at this point right now,
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the immediate impact is this, you know, $4 million statewide
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cut to actual food that we received from the USDA and distributed in the community.
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I think the other thing that we're really concerned
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about is the potential cuts to safety net programs, nutrition programs,
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and health programs like Snap and Medicaid, because so many folks rely
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on those programs for health supports, for nutritional supports.
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And our concern is that if those programs get cut back,
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people will have a harder time making ends meet,
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and they'll have to turn to the food bank or one of our partners to get access
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to food. But with reduced,
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revenues, that makes it really challenging.
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I mean, there is some good news, though.
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I saw the other week that Airbnb,
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donate $1 million to the food bank, but that's only a small portion.
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You mentioned that $4 million mark.
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Cut by the current amatriciana.
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What happens when your shelves do start to go bare, like you're mentioning?
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And the safety nets that used to be there aren't there anymore?
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What happens then?
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And have you seen are we see this happen before?
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You know, I think we want to do everything we can to prevent that from happening.
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You know, we are a strong organization.
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We have lots of different ways that we can stretch our dollar.
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And I think that's really what we're looking at for.
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So, really hoping that we don't ever come to a place where our cupboards at Hawaii
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Food Bank are bare.
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So I think we're so grateful to Airbnb for this wonderful donation.
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That was $1 million statewide to all of the food banks across the state.
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And that's, you know, absolutely helped quite a bit.
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But we, you know, continue to to see like, how can we bring in as much revenue
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as possible, you know, going forward and, and people, you know, can donate again,
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things like the city and county and state coalition food drive,
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those things make a big difference. So I think our hope is,
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we're going to do
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everything we can to maintain our inventory
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and make sure that the people that depend
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on the food bank can continue to get the food they need.
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Who is eligible to receive donations
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from the food bank, and how do they go about doing that?
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So that's a really good question.
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And anyone that needs a food assistance can come to any of our partner agencies
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and get help.
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So our position is if you're asking for help, we think you need it.
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We don't ask folks to jump through any hoops.
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If they if you need help, you can get help, no questions asked.
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We do have some programs, specially our USDA programs that do have income limits.
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So oftentimes you can come to one of our partners
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that ask you some questions if you're eligible for certain foods.
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And we can give you those.
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If not there's other food sources that we can give.
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You can go to our website again,
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Hawaii Food bank.org.
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There's a big banner or button that says how do you how you can get help.
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So you can go there.
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There's a map of all of our partner agencies also,
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all across the islands and lists of dates and times of distribution.
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So you can call those agencies, you can go to a pantry, you can go to distribution,
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and you can get help for you and your family.
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You mentioned help, not just here on Oahu, but across the state.
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What kind of collaboration do you have with other organizations
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that kind of do the similar service? Sure.
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So we directly serve the islands of Oahu
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and Kaua'i, and we partner with the Maui Food Bank
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to serve Maui County and the food basket to serve Hawai'i Island.
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So altogether, we loosely call ourselves our food bank, Hui but we work together.
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We meet regularly, just to see, like, how we can help each other out.
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If there's grants that we can apply for together,
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we have our teams often get together just to, you know, share
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best practices or, you know, for instance, after the wildfires on Maui,
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we were able to send a number of our team members, and a lot of food over to help.
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So we all help each other out.
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And then the other thing that's kind of neat about the model of
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the food banks is we are very partnership focused.
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So, we actually don't do a lot of direct distribution into the community,
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but we each have these partner agencies that are the ones doing the distribution.
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On this island, we have about 180 partner agencies,
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and this could be a church, it could be a nonprofit, it could be a school.
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It's a place where you can get access to food.
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So these organizations, the thing that we really love about it,
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it's like it's in community.
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So, you probably recall, you know, during the pandemic
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out of there, just incredible spike in need overnight.
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Hawaii Food Bank worked together with the county,
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and we had the big distributions down at the, stadium,
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but you probably also remember just the lines, right?
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Like, I think it just seared into my memory.
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I wasn't even part of the food bank yet at that time, but just,
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people waiting in line for hours on the freeway to get food.
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And you know that
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we don't see that anymore, even though the need is still so high.
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But the reason is because, guys, you don't have to go wait in line
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for three hours on the freeway, but you can go to your own neighborhood.
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Maybe it's a church, maybe it's a community center.
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Maybe it's your child's school.
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We have 58 school pantries right now, in different d.o.e.
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schools where you can get food. Right.
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So there's a whole you can go again on our website
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and you can see a list of all the agencies that we have.
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So hopefully there's, you know, if you need help, there's somebody that,
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you know, there's a place that's near you that you can go get help.
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And it's like neat to see
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a community coming together to support each other in that way.
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You are you for years.
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And so I. Just made for your sake. It's,
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Where were you before this, and what do you think
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prepared you for this role?
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So I worked at, Bishop museum for this.
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And, you know, my whole career has been in, in nonprofit work.
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So, I did two, two stints at this museum.
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I worked at another museum in Philadelphia between that.
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Prior to that, I worked at a small nonprofit.
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And, you know, I think in a lot of ways
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this the,
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the business of, community organization and nonprofit organization,
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there's a lot of similarities, right, in terms of like, we raise funds,
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grants, there's different ways that you raise money
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and there's different ways that you serve the community.
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But I have to say, like coming to the food bank, I was just blown away.
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I did I don't know that I was prepared, quite honestly.
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Because I, I really didn't understand this,
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the complexity of the work of the food bank, you know, it's a huge organization,
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millions of pounds of food.
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Last year we, we distributed almost 22 million pounds of food.
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So there's a lot of food coming in and going out.
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It's a lot of it is donated.
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Food safety is a huge priority for us.
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And then, you know, really working every day to say, okay,
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how can we get more healthy food?
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How can we see
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who's might be slipping through the cracks and we can serve those folks?
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So, there is a really steep learning curve for me, I would say.
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But I was lucky in that I had a nonprofit background.
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And so I did have some, you know, understanding of how
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how most nonprofits work.
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What do you love most about this job?
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Oh, man, what do I love most about this job?
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It's the people you know I love.
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This.
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You know, the team at the food bank.
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We have an incredible group of super, super dedicated
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and talented staff members. The volunteers.
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I mean, I will say that that is so amazing to come in.
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I mean, every day we have teams of volunteers
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who are sorting food every weekend, packing food.
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And they're just doing it because they want to be part of the solution.
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They want to help. And it ranges, you know, from,
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we have this
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group of what we call our Friday ladies that come in every Friday,
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and they help us mail, sort and stamp and get mailings out.
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We have, young people.
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My daughters come in. Sometimes it is sorting.
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So just this like really amazing range of people
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who are all kind of come together to support their community.
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And I just love that.
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I think that's really, really awesome.
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And then occasionally,
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you know, we get to hear from the folks that we support, right?
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Our neighbors that are in need of food assistance.
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We'll sometimes reach out and just let us know, like, hey,
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this really this really made a big difference.
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And those things really stick with me too.
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When it comes to those volunteers that you mentioned.
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Do you need more?
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Absolutely. We can always use volunteers.
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Especially so we have,
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every single day
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also, all donated food gets inspected by volunteers.
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So we want to be
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sure that nothing goes out on distribution that might get somebody sick.
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So every item is inspected by volunteers, made sure it's safe,
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and then we sort it out.
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We do that every single day.
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We have two shifts of volunteers Monday through.
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We do Saturday mornings also.
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So those are those you can reach out,
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get connected with our volunteer coordinator and sign up for shifts.
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It's also fun for things like a family to do together.
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Or we do lots of like an office.
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We'll say, come down and do a shift and it's fun,
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and you get a kick out for your colleagues a little bit and do something good.
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And then also we connect in with our partner agencies.
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So many of our partner agencies are fully volunteer run.
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So those are the bigger distribution,
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you know, big or small distributions that happen in community.
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So, you can also reach out and say, hey, I live in this area.
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Do you have a partner agency that might be looking for,
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volunteer support so we can kind of connect you
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into your own community and that's doing really,
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really important work within the whole Hawaii Clinic Network.
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I asked you what you love most, but on the flip side,
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what have you found to be the most challenging part of this job?
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The most, I mean, honestly,
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when we think about
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who we might not be reaching, that's the hardest thing for me.
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When I first got to the food bank, and it's kind of right
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in the height of the pandemic, and we are starting to plan
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for the future, like, okay, what's our goal? Right?
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We're seeing these huge high numbers.
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Obviously, we're hoping they start to come down as things settle
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out from the pandemic. But
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thinking about, okay, well,
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it's our goal just to get back to pre-pandemic levels of food insecurity.
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And then I really thought about, like,
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how many kids are we okay with going to bed hungry at night?
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And I think the answer is zero, right.
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Like, we live in the United States of America, we live in Hawaii.
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We live in a place where people really do take care of each other.
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And I don't think any of us are really okay with the idea
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of our neighbors, of children going to bed hungry at night.
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And that's the thing that's been the hardest to kind of
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wrap my head around.
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You know, when we did this food insecurity study last year,
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one of the things we found is that, you know, there are good numbers of people
17:03
who are not getting even all of the work we do through all this partnership.
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We still have about 10% of households in Hawaii are going
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without food for whole days, summer, most months of the year.
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6% of our keiki are going without food for whole days.
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And that's really heartbreaking.
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And you hear these stories, you know, kids who maybe
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the only square meal is that
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they might be getting our lunch and maybe breakfast at school
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and then not getting a meal at night, or how do you get through the weekend.
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So that's really hard.
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And of course, we can't do everything immediately.
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Right? But how do we,
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how do we plan, how do we really connect and partner to find?
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Because, you know, we can't do more with less.
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So how do we,
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build our revenue streams and partnerships so that we can source
17:58
enough safe and healthy food so that, you know, everybody gets what they need?
18:03
That's that's been the thing that kind of keeps me up at night.
18:07
So when we go through periods like this where grocery prices are starting to go
18:10
up, and more people are affected, I know it's really tough, but are there stories,
18:15
maybe good stories that you fall back on that make times like this a little easier?
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I mean, any time we get to hear about the impacts, you know?
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So when we think about, gosh, if I spend all my time thinking about the folks
18:28
that were missing, that we're not helping, that's really hard.
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And then we'll get a letter right from somebody who,
18:35
just wants to say thank you for the food that, that they got.
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We did, we participated in cookout for Keiki last summer. So,
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together with,
18:47
a number of a whole bunch of organizations kind of across the island,
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really helped to make sure kids get access to healthy foods over the summer.
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But I just we got these letters back, and it was,
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you know, it's
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like when you're kind of down at work, you can pull out of your desk drawer
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some of these just, like, really beautiful notes from parents, like,
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hey, I was able to get have my kids had milk in their cereal.
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This is so great.
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We made, you know, healthy.
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Still, we made all they just can say all the things
19:18
that they were able to make with the with the foods that they got.
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And that just makes a huge difference.
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So like, that's what I kind of when I get a little,
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you know, overwhelmed it.
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Okay. The challenges are big, and I'm not gonna lie. Right.
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We're in a difficult time right now, and it's probably not going to get any easier.
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We also try to remember that we are also helping people every day.
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And how lucky am I to be able to be in a role where I get to say I do that?
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Not everybody does. Yeah.
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I'm sure your daughters must be proud of you.
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I hope so, I don't know, they're like, mom,
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they're so funny.
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They're like very,
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they they're very picky about when I am.
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Do any media like
20:03
how you tilted your head too much, mom, you talk too close to the microphone.
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So I'm always, like, aware that I have to, My daughters are,
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12 and 15.
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I have two very,
20:16
very strong critics out there that are probably going to watch this.
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And, you know, how does the impact of your work will affect them?
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You know, I think they they're
20:24
they're proud, of course.
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And I think it's helped them just, you know, we live really.
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We're lucky. We're lucky.
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I have you know, been able to give my kids they
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they haven't had to wonder about where their next meal is coming from.
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I've been lucky my whole life.
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So I think we get to talk about.
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That's not like that for everybody.
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They get to, they come down and volunteer at the warehouse.
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And so they've they've had the opportunity to kind of get a sense for both
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how lucky we are, but how important it is to give back because,
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you know, it's hard to be somewhere where and you know, that there are other kids,
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you know, at your school or in your community
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that are really, really having a hard time.
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And I spent a lot of time thinking about that too.
21:13
Right.
21:13
Like, what must it be like, say, as a parent, to not know?
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If you know, you can put a meal on the table for your kids
21:20
at night or like, what, are we going to see them tomorrow?
21:23
Another,
21:25
statistic from
21:27
our our study we did last year that really, really stuck with me.
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So we have if we look at all of, you know, households
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and we look at just amongst households with children,
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out of those households in Hawaii, 29% of the children are food insecure,
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that 38% of the adults are food insecure.
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So that gap really, right, is that the parents,
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the caregivers are going without in order to make sure their kids have food to eat.
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So, you know, makes sense.
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Any of us could do that.
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And as a result,
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you know, almost 40% of our parents and caregivers are food insecure.
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And I just try to imagine what that must, you know, how hard that must be.
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And I think, like all of us who live in Hawaii, we've all gone through times,
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you know, where you're, Can I quite make, you know, can I when am I?
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We're going to have a lot of ramen this week or whatever.
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But just how stressful it must be.
22:20
Especially as a parent
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to not know
22:23
if you're going to be able to scrape together enough and your kids are hungry.
22:26
And what do you tell them?
22:28
So I, I really feel like the more that we can do
22:31
together to support the community and food is just such like a,
22:36
you know, it's a
22:37
it's a basic need, but it's also a way more than just a need, right?
22:41
Food is not just sustenance. It is.
22:43
And it's like how we show we care about each other, certainly in Hawaii.
22:47
Right? Like you. People come. Together.
22:49
Yeah. People come together.
22:50
That's how you share your culture.
22:52
Like you never show up empty handed, right?
22:54
There's all these pieces.
22:55
That food is like this thing that brings us together.
22:59
So I think our hope and what we've seen actually,
23:03
through all of these challenges at Hawai'i Foodbank is people do come together
23:06
and they help each other out.
23:07
And, you know, it's with all of the different,
23:12
you know, food insecurity.
23:13
There's lots of different pieces to it, right?
23:15
We can't just solve food without understanding
23:18
that it's part of this bigger, bigger issue of housing and affordability.
23:21
Right? It's this is a hard place to live for a lot of folks.
23:24
But we can fit.
23:26
I think maybe I'm being like a little bit too Pollyanna on this,
23:30
but I really think, like, food is something we can solve, right?
23:33
It's we don't have that many people living on this island.
23:36
We could fix this.
23:37
We can get people food if we can just.
23:40
And then can you imagine what it would be like
23:43
to just take that one worry off somebodys plate?
23:46
Like, okay, I know I can get enough food for my family.
23:51
Oh, okay. Can I worry about my job?
23:53
Can I really about, you know, my rent, all these other things?
23:56
But the food piece is
24:00
it's like an outsized stress for people.
24:02
And in the grand scheme, it actually isn't that
24:06
costly compared to housing.
24:10
Right. Other thing.
24:11
So my hope is that we can if we could prioritize food and say
24:15
like, okay, here's where we're going to come together.
24:17
We live in Hawaii.
24:18
We're not going to let anybody go hungry and just start there.
24:21
We can build out, but at the same time, just really taking care of each other.
24:26
I think in a really important way.
24:29
Well, thank you so much for your time.
24:30
Is there anything that we missed?
24:32
I don't think so.
24:34
I mean, we're so grateful to the partnership with the city and county.
24:38
I know you mentioned it's like a little bit of a competition.
24:41
So that's one of the things I really love about this particular food
24:44
drive is seeing, like all the offices and, kind of build up against each other.
24:49
So, hey, if you are out there and you haven't contributed yet,
24:54
I hope you will consider it because it's a, it's a great way to support community
24:59
and also have a little pride and city employees to me.
25:05
Thanks so much for your time.
25:06
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
25:08
And a quick reminder of Mayor Blangiardi is next.
25:10
Town hall meeting is scheduled for tonight, May 8th at Council High School.
25:13
That's for those in Kaneohe, Kailua, Waimanalo and Moana.
25:17
We'li start time is set for 6:30 p.m..
25:19
We hope to see you there.
25:20
Mahalo for listening and until next time, Aloha!