What Hurricane Lala Showed Us About Working Together

Volunteers pass cases of drinking water hand to hand at a community distribution in Pāhala on Aug. 17, 2026. Photo courtesy of The Food Basket.

Our Executive Director, Kristin Frost Albrecht, wrote an opinion piece for Honolulu Civil Beat about what Hurricane Lala revealed on Hawaiʻi Island. It ran Sunday, September 13.

She opens in the Hilo warehouse at the height of the response, pallets of water on the floor and trucks rolling out, and a staff member walking up to tell her about families who were cut off and had not surfaced through any official channel.

Nearly a million pounds of food and water moved through our operations in August. In the weeks after the storm we distributed more than one hundred thousand ready-to-eat meals and grocery vouchers, and kept our regular hunger relief programs running for approximately 60,000 residents. Kristin writes that those numbers show the scale of the response, and they are not what she thinks about most.

Sometimes the most important question is not, "How do we reach this community?" It is, "Who already knows them? Who do they trust?"

Read the full piece at Honolulu Civil Beat: https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/09/collaboration-during-a-disaster-is-critical/

Mahalo to every partner agency, neighborhood leader, church, farm and volunteer who carried part of August. The piece is about you.

Need food?

E-Box runs weekdays at both warehouses. Hilo warehouse, 40 Holomua St., 1 to 3. Kona warehouse, 73-4161 Ulu Wini Pl. in Kailua-Kona, 1 to 2. Open to everyone, no preregistration. Call (808) 933-6030 or visit hawaiifoodbasket.org/find-food-now.

Want to help?

hawaiifoodbasket.org/donate