Boobs4Food in Hawaii Aug2009

As Boobs4Food embarks on a mid-year vacation to Hawaii, our favorite detox’n'grub locale for rest and relaxation, we’re honoring volunteerism as our mid-year passion in progress theme. In honor of last month, April, being National Volunteer Month, and our return to Hawaii to vacation and to volunteer again, our upcoming trip this week is a reminder on the importance of helping out communities in small ways that matter.

Passion in Progress is big on many things: food, music, art and travel, but one of our biggest passions in volunteering. We are constantly reminded of the words one of our nation’s leaders shared, “Loving your country shouldn’t just mean watching fireworks on the 4th of July”. We started Boobs4Food a little less than a year ago and traveled to Hawaii then for vacation but to also volunteer while on our break because we felt grateful for the lives we are able to live and we had a strong desire to pay it forward.

Boobs4Food participated in Kidney Walk SF 2010 in May. Photo courtesy of Miguel Escobedo

What drives us to volunteer is the feeling of fulfillment and empowerment in knowing we can help our communities in small ways. We’ve realized that those in our generation aren’t held back from volunteering or from giving back not because they aren’t willing, but that they haven’t had the access to opportunities to do so or they don’t want to do it all alone.  Whether it’s pitching in to fight hunger through giving your time or supporting a Kidney or Cancer Walk or even mentoring an neighborhood adolescent – all of these efforts are wanted, needed and appreciated to build better and stronger communities on a local and global level.

Dinner service @ The Midnight Mission in LA's Skid Row

On our upcoming trip to Hawaii in a couple days, we’ll be meeting up with our new friends at non-profit organization, Hands In Helping Out, to learn more about how they’ve successfully built an organization promoting the importance of volunteering in local communities because they realized there was a societal and personal need and desire to take on something they were passionate about: volunteering. We’ll also be meeting up with Hawaii Charity, a philanthropic social concierge serving results-oriented organizations, to learn more about how local communities in Hawaii are helping each other throughout the island.

This summer, whether you’re on summer break, on vacation or on a weekend, think about finding a cause or organization to donate your time to in building a better and stronger community as a gesture of loving your country and community beyond watching fireworks on the the Fourth of July.

-Jess

Follow HawaiiCharity on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/hawaiicharity

Follow HIHO on Twitter here: www.twitter.com/hihovolunteer

Read more about HIHO.org : Hands In Helping feature in the Honolulu Examiner

Volunteer at Hawaii Food Bank: www.hawaiifoodbank.org

Boobs4Food keeps the hunger fighting movement alive even while on holiday in Hawaii…

Less than 72 hours before our trip to Oahu – Team Boobs4Food decided to re-contact Hawaii Food Bank to see if they were open to having us lend a helping hand. Since our greater goal here at Boobs4Food is to bring hunger awareness to a global scale – we wanted to see if we could devote some quality time during our holiday to a cause such as the Hawaii Food Bank. Annie C. at Hawaii Food Bank replied back to us quickly and gave us the okay to allow us to drop-in and help them out in their “house” given our recent Boobs4Food activities that we’ve documented. An opportunity to drop-in, which is very rare as the Hawaii Food Bank usually requires volunteers to make 6-month commitments, got us all very excited for our holiday.

We immediately felt the island aloha upon our arrival as we were given a brief tour and introductions to the team. We hit the ground running as we sorted through refrigerated perishables such as orange juice, dairy products, inspected cartons of eggs for cracks, frozen foods and finally we sorting fresh bread & baked goods for freshness and mold.

With our past experience in sorting frozen penne & green beans, and produce, our event at Hawaii Food Bank allowed us to see another angle of how food banks operate. After all the sorting and inspection is done, agencies from around the island come through and shop through the bank at a flat rate of just cents per pound of food.  This opportunity was wonderful to see how it all works halfway across the Pacific.  The Hawaii Food Bank happens to get quite a bit of fresh produce from not only local supermarket chains such as Safeway & Whole Foods but also from local farmers from around the island.

We enjoyed getting to know the other volunteers, how the food bank runs their operations and why these volunteers devote their time and efforts to a cause such as Hawaii Food Bank.  Overall, this experience was a lot of fun and even included jumping in the moldy bread bin to maximize room. We look forward to coming back to help the Hawaii Food Bank out again on our future trips to the island and to share our Aloha Spirit in the form of fighting hunger alongside with them.

Check out and support the Hawaii Food Bank!

Aloha!

- Team Boobs4Food

SEPT 5, 2009