The Pohukaina Food Pantry hosted by the Lunalilo Scholars Program at Kapi\u02bbolani Community College is hoping to help address some of that. Each week, the scholars set up a diverse arrangement of pasta, cereal, snacks, canned goods, and more for hungry students and staff, <\/strong>who can come to ‘Iliahi 231 and take the items they need.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe knew how important this was to students and the research was there to back it up,\u201d said LaVach\u00e9 Scanlan, the project director of Lunalilo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n LaVach\u00e9 Scanlan (left) and \u201cAunty Coco\u201d Andrade-Fujii set up the food pantry each week for students and faculty. (Photo by Jared Page)<\/p><\/div>\n The Lunalilo Scholars are taking action to fight hunger on campus, and students are encouraged to take advantage of this\u00a0resource. <\/span>Through a combination of private donors, non-profit partners, and the Hawai\u2018i Foodbank, Lunalilo has acquired over 1,000 pounds of non-perishable foods that will help combat food insecurity at KCC.<\/span><\/p>\n The free food pantry is up and running on the second floor of the \u2018Iliahi building at KCC\u2019s campus every Thursday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To eliminate the stigma surrounding these types of services, the food pantry has been set up to imitate a shopping experience. Students simply sign in and choose items with no further expectations or questions asked. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to study and be a successful student if you\u2019re hungry,” Scanlan said. “In this center (\u2018Iliahi), we always have free coffee and snacks available. No one asks anything of you; you\u2019re free to help yourself.”<\/span><\/p>\n Many are already putting the food pantry to good use. The pantry, which opened on Jan. 16, has already served more than 400 people, Scanlan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n “<\/b>It’s been almost four years in the making putting this together, and it was worth every minute,” she said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jared Page | Staff Writer With the cost of living and college tuition on the rise, the stress levels of students are following suit. According to The Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, in 2018, Hawai’i had the lowest wages in the United States when compared to its cost of living.\u00a0 The Pohukaina Food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":16827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"\n With the cost of living and college tuition on the rise, the stress levels of students are following suit. According to a study conducted by the Nutrition Society at The University of Hawai\u2019i at M\u0101noa in 2009, a whopping 21 percent of student participants were considered to be food-insecure; a mental health condition linked to heightened aggression, anxiety, and cognitive issues.<\/span><\/p>\n One especially helpful service being provided at Kapi\u2019olani Community College is the recurring Pohukaina Food Pantry hosted by the Lunalilo Scholars Program. Each week, the Scholars set up a diverse arrangement of pasta, cereal, snacks, canned goods, and more for hungry students<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe knew how important this was to students and the research was there to back it up,\u201d said LaVach\u00e9 Scanlan, the Project Director of Lunalilo.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_16839\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"] \u00a0<\/p>\n The Lunalilo Scholars are taking action to fight hunger on campus, and students are encouraged to take advantage of this helpful resource. <\/span>Through a combination of private donors, non-profit partners, and the Hawai\u2018i Foodbank, Lunalilo has acquired over 1,000 pounds of non-perishable foods that will help combat food-insecurity at KCC.<\/span><\/p>\n To eliminate the stigma surrounding these types of services, the food pantry has been set up to imitate a shopping experience. Students simply sign in and choose the items they need with no further expectations or questions asked. <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s hard to study and be a successful student if you\u2019re hungry. In this center (\u2018Iliahi), we always have free coffee and snacks available. No one asks anything of you, you\u2019re free to help yourself,\u201d said Scanlan.<\/span><\/p>\n Many are already putting the food pantry to good use. \u201cWe\u2019ve been offering this service since Jan 16, and since then we\u2019ve served about 400 people,\u201d Scanlan noted. <\/span>The free student service is up and running on the second floor of the \u2018Iliahi building at KCC\u2019s campus every Thursday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[37,39,38,40],"class_list":["post-16823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campusnews","category-news","tag-food","tag-kcc","tag-lunalilo","tag-pantry","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kapionews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/IMG_0034-300x200.jpg\")
LaVach\u00e9 Scanlan (left) and \u201cAunty Coco\u201d Andrade-Fujii set up the food pantry each week for hungry students and faculty.[\/caption]\n