Did you know that more than six million seniors in America face the threat of hunger? And in Hawaii, 5.24 percent or one of every 20 senior citizens are at risk of going hungry. This according to the follow up to a groundbreaking report by the Meals on Wheels Association of America titled “The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America.”

The numbers remain intolerable and the stories both break and warm your heart. Stories of seniors like Mr. & Mrs. P, age 70 and 78, who reside in a small home in Waianae. Now wheel chair bound because a degenerative arthritis in her knees Mrs. P is full of stories and good times. Mr. P., hard of hearing, occasionally looks upon you, smiles and returns his attention to his bride of 54 years.

At first Mrs. P. refused the meals on wheels service believing it to be a handout and she did not want that. She later changed her mind. She is grateful for the meals as well as the opportunity to enjoy visits and tell her stories. Without additional support, seniors like Mr. & Mrs. P. are in danger of being left behind. But together, we can make a difference.

With only seven days left until our annual March for Meals and Kupuna Rally at the Capitol Building in downtown Honolulu, Lanakila Pacific would like to let you know how important it is to be a part of the movement to end senior hunger.

Please come out and support our seniors next Tuesday, March 29 at 10:30am. We will be meeting at the Capitol Rotunda outside of the Capitol building. Our goal is to send a message to our elected officials that senior hunger is not a problem that will be overlooked.

For more information visit lanakilapacific.org or aarp.org/hi or call (808) 531-0555. You can also register for the event here.

While it wasn’t clear if our organization would be operational until the all clear was given around 10a.m., our volunteers showed up for duty at their regular time prepared to deliver meals to seniors. These volunteers offered their assistance when it was needed most, and expected least, and we would like to extend a most gracious “Thank you” to them.

We feel that it is during events like this that our services, and our volunteers, are essential to the liveliehood of our kupuna. If it wasn’t for our volunteers going beyond the call of duty seniors on our routes would have gone hungry and missed a valuable personal connection that is crucial during a time of crisis.

Lanakila Pacific would especially like to thank Xander Clintron-Chai, Sean Ramata, Glenn Beppu, Jan Kaneshiro, Jennifer Lono, Roschelle Scherer, Thomas Oshiro, Fitu Perry, Robert Boesch, Jackie Armstrong and Ronnie Zapata for their outstanding commitment to volunteering to make a difference in the life of our kupuna.

In times of chaos it is sometimes the simplest of necessities, like senior meal delivery service, that can get overlooked. Without the help of our Lanakila Meals on Wheels volunteers last Friday our mission to ensure assistance for those living challenged lives would have been impossible to complete. A special thanks to them and all of our volunteers. Mahalo.

The march begins at 10:30a.m. and will go around the rotunda until 11:00a.m. The Kupuna Rally will immediately follow at 11:00a.m. and run until noon. Organizers and participants will be wearing red and/or orange t-shirts and we invite you to do the same.

Showing your support by attending either, or both of these events helps raise awareness and funds for programs that aid seniors living at home. These programs include, but are not limited to, home meal delivery, household chore assistance, bathing, transportation and companion services.

In fact, these services help seniors live richer, more independent lives and keeps them out of institutionalized retirement homes longer. The organizations that help provide these kupuna services include Catholic Charities, Project Dana, Lanakila Meals on Wheels, St. Francis Bathing, Child and Family Service, Kokua Kalihi Valley Health Center and Waikiki Friendly Neighbors.

So please come out and show your support for our kupuna on Tuesday, March 29 from 10:30a.m – noon! We also invite you to bring a bag of brown rice to donate to Lanakila Meals on Wheels to support our drive to end senior hunger.

For more information visit lanakilapacific.org or aarp.org/hi or call (808) 531-0555. You can also register for the event here.

From all of us at Lanakila Pacific, mahalo for an amazing year!  Here are just a few highlights from 2010.  Happy New Year!!

A warm mahalo to Manolo Morales and cameraman Bob who came out to capture the day’s spirit for KHON2 and to KITV for coming out to capture the beginning of the day!

President Marian Tsuji, donning a kitchen required hairnet, the volunteer fashion statement of the day, had this to share: “Many Meals on Wheels programs across the country are struggling to provide meals in this down economy,” “Although we are still facing funding shortfalls, we are so thankful for all the incredible volunteers and supporters who stepped up to ensure Thanksgiving meals for Hawaii’s seniors despite these tough economic times.”

Yes, we truly are.

The diverse group of volunteers that showed up in the wee hours to help this year included Phoenix Jaycees, HGEA, Hawaii Air Guard, St. Louis High School, Honolulu Church of Christ, Girl Scout Troop 615, Hickam Federal Credit Union, Hickam Federal Women’s Program, Lualualei Lions Club and HECO. Mahalo to all of them!

Mahalo to professional photographer Augusto DeCastro for volunteering his artful eye. Here’s an album he put together of Thankgiving Lanakila Meals on Wheels style.

We put together a slideshow of the day, you can watch it on youtube.

Just to let you know, monetary donations and volunteer drivers are still needed to provide meals to homebound seniors on Christmas Day and donations of small Christmas gifts for seniors are welcomed. Donated gifts will be delivered to seniors in need along with the meals on Christmas Day. So if your feeling that elf energy, just give us a jingle!

After years of fundraising and planning, much needed repairs and stylish renovations turned the TLC Wahiawa Center in the Wahiawa Fresh Water Park into an even warmer and colorful place of learning and sharing. The teaching kitchen received a make-over with TLC signature purple cabinets and fixtures, natural light came in through the now numerous windows. New restrooms. Larger classroom spaces and offices.

After a wonderful and inspiring blessing by Kahu Bill Kaina and President Marian Tsuji, TLC participants welcomed their guests into their new center. Everyone was treated to a tour and tasty refreshments from Lanakila Kitchen.

Many thanks to Midweek’s Nathalie Walker for being part of our celebration and for sharing it with her Midweek readers in a recent article.

And this week’s Midweek’s Paina Page!

We’ve also put together a slide show of the day’s events.

Mahalo to everyone who made the day possible. Like Kahu Bill Kaina mentioned, it took the efforts of many to make the renovation possible and the day’s celebration what it was. We’re grateful for everyone’s support. And we’re looking forward to the next phase as the Wahiawa renovation continues with the addition of an arts studio, community media lab, and food growing operation that will include aquaponics.

Farmers Insurance Hawaii employees were active participants in the everyday hustle and bustle of Lanakila Meals on Wheels throughout September. Farmers employees went over and beyond by helping to package and deliver meals to homebound seniors and even helped to launch a new program called Groceries to Go, where 200 reusable shopping bags were filled with groceries and delivered to seniors to supplement their hot meals. Employees also donated approximately 500 pounds of brown rice – AMAZING! The very generous donation will be an enormous help to Lanakila Pacific as we work towards Ending Senior Hunger by 2020. 

We would like to thank Farmers Insurance Hawaii, their community partners, and the public for their generosity. We are so grateful for the donations made from the “Hunger Action Month – Drive Out Hunger in Hawaii” campaign, and would like to remind everyone that the need for volunteers and donations continues. If you would like more information on how to get involved, please contact us at 531-0555 or cr@lanakilapacific.org.

As soon as that is ready, we’re posting it here and sending it out.

Meanwhile, we just want to share how grateful we are for the heartwarming generosity of Good Table diners, sponsors, restaurants, volunteers, supporters and staff that made this fundraiser a big success for Lanakila Meals on Wheels.

The amazing show of support is really helping to raise awareness for the plight of the seniors in our community.  So many people have been stepping forward to help spread the word, person to person, local media and our very socially concious local social media community. 

Here is a post published this morning by one of Lanakila Meals on Wheels’ steadfast supporters, Melissa Chang, in the new local community web magazine, NonStop Hawaii.

And here’s one also posted this morning in the Star Advertiser site by Ed Sugimoto, aka Worldwide Ed.

We want to thank and acknowledge Hawaii’s social media community for  supporting The Good Table, their vibrant and joyful energy really added to the success and the fun of this event!  As you can tell by a lot of the pictures and the comments we are collecting, we are really lucky here in Hawaii to have such a lively local community-minded social media scene!

Ok, back to work on our official mahalo!  Stay tuned and thanks again!

We wanted to share this blog post by master crafter Kathy Goo who is the author of Star Advertiser’s Island Crafters blog.   Kathy, her daughter Shannon (Executive Assistant to our President Marian Tsuji), and their friends Jan and Judy created these amazing centerpieces for all of the Good Tables this year. 

They were tasked with coming up with something that would be informative, festive, meaningful and would also keep with our theme of sustainable growth.  What they came up with warmed our hearts, even the little flower pot is made with biodegradable bamboo. 

And when we read Kathy’s blog post it touched our hearts even more.  Mahalo to Kathy, Shannon, the Goo family, Jan and Judy for bringing this special touch to this year’s Good Table!

Tonight, at 6 p.m., diners will once again sit down to share in wonderful and unique feasts prepared by Oahu restuarants to raise funds and awareness for Lanakila Meals on Wheels and the invisible plight of senior hunger.

We at Lanakila have a hard time finding the words to express the wonderment and gratefulness that we are experiencing right now as hundreds of diners, restaurant chefs and their staff, sponsors, volunteers, local media,  social media, and community make The Good Table come alive for our seniors.  We know we are watching community in action.   It is more than a word.  It is feeling.  And it is as close to joy as anything else. 

At this writing, we are nearly six hours away from this year’s Good Table. 

As restaurants prep their menus, as diners gather family and friends, we’re putting our website in order so that we can again be uploading pictures from everyone as they send them – to our Good Table website - in real time, as the event unfolds.  For now, it is the only way we know how to show you what it is we are seeing:  hundreds of people creating something together. 

Last year, The Good Table diners, restaurants, sponsors and volunteers raised over $160,000 for Lanakila Meals on Wheels.  Even more, it brought a lot of people together and we made a lot of new good friends.

Yesterday, an article by Lanakila Meals on Wheels Director Toni Fegers was published in Midweek.  In it she talks about our program’s beginnings, 39 years ago, with a lunch truck that drove down to A’ala park to give sandwiches to the seniors living in that first cluster of low-income apartment buildings near the heart of Honolulu’s historic Chinatown.  The concept of Meals on Wheels started in the U.S. in the 70′s as grassroots community response to the fragmentation of families, resulting urban isolation and our society’s unpreparedness for the care of our increasing population of elders.  In the years since, a calamity of factors has only increased the need for meals on wheels.  What it has also done is create  a deeply organized effort of meals on wheels organizations across the country that fundraises and advocates for legislation protecting the rights of seniors and their caregivers, as well as create programs that directly address the most basic needs of seniors – nutrition, social network, and simple things like collecting donated petfood for pets so seniors can keep their furry companions. 

The Good Table originates from this effort.   Thank you for being a part of it.