More than 20 years ago, as the new Big Island community organizer for the Office of Social Ministry (OSM), Carol Ignacio interviewed about 300 people working in social services to determine her island’s greatest needs. She learned that the most urgent, and growing, issue was homelessness. Related to that, church food pantries and community feeding programs were in great need of food and money.

Ignacio began addressing the food problem by convincing grocery store owners to give her discarded canned goods and food items which she delivered to places that cared for people in need. The operation grew from a storage closet at St. Joseph School in Hilo, and deliveries out of the back of Ignacio’s Toyota Tercel, to The Food Basket, a food bank with two large warehouses, one in Hilo and one in Kona, that serves more than 3,000 people a month with emergency food and hot meals.

Big Island supermarkets and residents donate food and other items which are sorted and shelved at the centers. One hundred and six food pantries and other food distribution organizations pick up the goods and distribute them. The food bank also operates a Senior Brown Bag Program that provides food weekly at 10 locations to low-income seniors.

Now well-established and on solid financial footing, the food bank has entered a new phase. On Aug. 1, the diocese transferred The Food Basket, formerly called the Hawaii Island Food Bank, to a new community-based non-profit organization operated by a board of directors.

The board named Nani Lee, an attorney with a doctorate in social work, as executive director. Ignacio, who is the executive director for the Office for Social Ministry, will continue as a board member.

Determined that Lee was the best person for the job, Ignacio made the bold suggestion that she step back from her 15-year Waimea law practice to run the food bank. Ignacio had made a similar step in 1986 when she left her secure state job to serve those in need full time.

“I said Nani, take a day or two (to think about it),” Ignacio said. “She said, ‘Don’t tell me you are going to pray because your prayers get answered.’ I said, ‘Just let it trickle down.’”

Ignacio said that, as the former director of The Food Basket, she spent a large portion of her time fundraising for the program, leaving less time to work on the many other Office for Social Ministry programs.

“This is what Nani does full time and she is doing a magnificent job,” Ignacio said.

“When I was the executive director, it was a program — one of many. And now (for Lee) this is eat, sleep, drink the organization and the people will be the beneficiaries,” she said.

The handover

Ignacio said the intention all along was to give the food bank to the community.

“When we opened the food bank, Bishop Joe (Ferrario) said, ‘You know, Carol, I don’t know of any other diocese that runs food banks,’’ Ignacio said. “Let’s get it started and when it is strong, we’ll turn it over to the community.”

Twenty years later, Bishop Larry Silva agreed to the transition, on the condition that Big Island residents understood that the church saw the change as benefit to the community, and that there was a solid commitment by the community to keep it going.

Founding board members include chairman Barry Taniguchi, KTA chief executive officer and president; treasurer Warren Lee, president of Hawaiian Electric Company (HELCO); secretary Debbie Ching-Maiava, manager of Ken’s Pancake House; chair-elect Tom Whittmore, a financial consultant; vice chairwoman Nani Lee; and Roland Higashi, president of Creative Arts Hawaii.

The transition will be guided by the diocese over the next three years, with a commitment of financial support up to $300,000.

“The Catholic Church has been very generous to us in assisting us through the transition,” Lee said, “and also in allowing Carol to continue not only to be on our board of directors, but to continue to be available for me.”

Board member Warren Lee said The Food Basket provides “a tremendous service.”

“There are a lot of people in need on the Big Island,” he said. “People have to eat. Now with the downturn in the economic times, it is getting much worse.”

Lee said that Nani Lee is a good choice for executive director.

“Nani is well based,” he said. “She was born and raised on the Big Island and she understands the need. She has been educated and worked on the mainland and on Oahu so she has the big picture. She is success minded and has excellent planning and administrative abilities.”

Keeping connected

The Office of Social Ministry will maintain a close link with the food bank and continue to occupy the top floor of The Food Basket building in Hilo.

“The number one priority for the board is they want to be connected with OSM,” Ignacio said. “We as a church have formed true partnerships in this community that they want to keep.”

Ardie Ikeda, a volunteer coordinator for the Hilo-based “Meet and Eat” weekly hot meal program that has fed more than 75,000 since its inception in 1993, said her service depends heavily on The Food Basket.

“Without a program like that, I don’t think we would be able to raise enough funds to keep the organization going,” Ikeda said. “What we can get from the food bank, we would never be able to provide on our own.”

Ignacio said one of the challenges in the transition was the program’s old name — Hawaii Island Food Bank — which often caused it to be mistakenly associated with the Hawaii Food Bank on Oahu. To reduce the confusion, the board ran a contest to choose a new name and create a new logo.

“This young girl from St. Joe’s (school) won,” she said. “And of course the food basket logo came out of that.”

Handing over the reigns of the food bank to new management has allowed the Office of Social Ministry to concentrate on a priority of the diocese’s strategic Road Map plan — homelessness.

“To me, it is all in the plan,” Ignacio said of the changeover. “It was hard. In my head I knew this transfer had to happen. In my heart it was kind of difficult.”

“The Food Basket is in good hands — the best hands,” Ignacio said. “When I started this in my car, I was 20 years younger. I had this hope that we wouldn’t need a food bank because we did everything right. But (now I see) it is going to be around.”

For more information or to donate, contact the Food Basket at 808-933-6020 or go to www.thefoodbasketinc.com.