When Amanda Corby Noguchi joined us last week on the show, she was talking from a food distribution site as she, and dozens of volunteers worked to pack up food parcels for Hawaii’s growing population of food insecure residents. The pandemic of 2020 has brought challenges most of us could barely have imagined a few months ago and food shortages are amongst the most worrying. But when darkness descends there is always light, and Noguchi, along with her husband, the well-loved chef Mark ‘Gooch’ Noguchi, is shining her light bright and steady . “Mark and I are food people, we’re event people we're organizers… but we’re really community people,” she explains. “ It’s in our DNA, and I think it’s what we were put on earth to do.” When the couple saw Covid 19 approaching, they were concerned about many things, including schoolchildren who rely on schools as their sometimes only source of food for the day, Kupuna who would be unable to shop for food, and neighbors without jobs who were suddenly unable to provide for their families .

An initial partnership with Aloha Harvest began and the team began to rescue food.

“We spent the first three weeks just working with restaurants to save and rescue food,” says Amanda. “So many people stepped up to help,” And in May of 2020 they started a Give N Go program which provided restaurants an $8 per meal stipend to prepare meals for people in need.

Chef Hui now acts as the umbrella for numerous food and community projects where volunteers - and donations - are always welcome.

“We couldn’t do any of this work without the amazing chefs and volunteers and everyone who’s come together to make all of this happen,” says Amanda. And the community definitely couldn’t do without the inspirational Noguchis.