KAILUA-KONA — The alarm sounded, and the Army answered.
Days after the Hawaii Island Food Basket went public with their need for food and supplies approaching Thanksgiving — it only had two turkeys saved — the US Army at Pohakuloa Training Area was ready with a remedy.
PTA donated more than 2,500 pounds of non-perishable food items to Hawaii’s food bank on Friday.
PTA recycles all food items not used by soldiers and provides them to various Hawaii Island organizations that feed the community, including the homeless. Recent training at PTA involved more than 1,000 soldiers from Oahu’s Schofield Barracks, which spanned the last 30 days.
The supplies proved a godsend for the food basket, which detailed on Wednesday in a news article its dire need for food heading into the holiday.
Adam Scharf, PTA’s Recycle and Solid Waste director, stockpiled, palletized and shrink wrapped the food items for delivery, which included main entrees, fruits and vegetables, desserts and even a variety of condiments.
Kristin Frost, CEO of Hawaii Food Basket, met with Greg Fleming, Deputy Garrison Commander of PTA, to thank the team for coordinating the timely and good-news event.