Community partnership doubles free keiki meal capacity
Beginning May 5, 2020, a partnership of nonprofit and government organizations will be nearly doubling the capacity of a program that is serving free healthy meals. The meals, prepared according to United States Department of Agriculture standards, will be served at 19 Oʻahu sites and one Maui site, reaching well over 2,000 children and youth per day.
Nine new sites, which will start serving both breakfast and lunch, will open at Kamaʻāina Kids preschool locations in Honolulu, Kāneʻohe, Kailua, ʻEwa and Mililani on Oʻahu, as well as in Kahului on Maui. Pālama Settlement in Kalihi will continue to be the only site serving suppers.
Parents or guardians may pick up meals without their keiki being present, provided that they present documentation that they have keiki in their household.
Since Hawaiʻi public schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this partnership has been steadily increasing its capacity to provide free meals to keiki, as a complement to the meal distribution sites that the Department of Education is operating at some 70 public schools (out of 256) across the state.
On a typical school day, nearly 65,000 economically disadvantaged Hawaiʻi students benefit from free or reduced-price school breakfast and lunch. For many, these are the only nutritious meals that they eat regularly. For their families, these meals help relieve financial stress by reducing their food budgets.
During the summer, when students are not able to eat free or reduced-price meals at school, community partners work together to provide food to children and youth in low-income areas via the federal Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).
Five SFSP sponsors—Kamaʻāina Kids, YMCA of Honolulu, Parents And Children Together, Pālama Settlement, and Windward Nazarene Academy—have stepped up to provide free meals for keiki in low-income areas on Oʻahu and Maui during these unplanned school closures.
These sponsors are partnering with Aloha Harvest, Kapiʻolani Community College, Lanakila Pacific, Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center, and Hawaiʻi Child Nutrition Programs to get the meals prepared and delivered.
View a map of the below sites here.
