World Central Kitchen on the ground in Hawaii to provide meals amid wildfire aftermath
AccuWeather spoke live with World Central Kitchen on Aug. 14 about their efforts to feed evacuees and emergency workers in the hardest-hit areas of Maui.
Transcript
00:00 We want to take you to Hawaii to check on the continuing situation there after the Maui wildfires.
00:06 Yeah, this has been a horrible, horrible week here going back to Wednesday of last week
00:10 with the wildfires that have ravaged portions of especially Maui County.
00:14 And the wildfires, of course, they've done a lot of damage, clearly mean more than 90 lives.
00:20 Whenever there's a natural disaster or a humanitarian crisis, sometimes even a political need,
00:25 World Central Kitchen is always among the first responders.
00:28 And right now in Hawaii, it's obviously a huge need, no different.
00:33 Yeah, the nonprofit was founded by Chef Jose Andres,
00:36 and they are on the ground providing thousands of meals to people that are in need.
00:42 Thank you so much for joining us.
00:43 Yeah, this is John Torpy joining us here from World Central Kitchen.
00:48 So, John, thank you for making time for us.
00:50 We understand that World Central Kitchen has seen disasters around the world.
00:53 You've even been in Ukraine lately.
00:56 How would you describe the wildfire situation there on the ground in Hawaii?
01:01 Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. It's a terrible situation here.
01:05 It's amazing the amount of destruction.
01:09 I'm just so glad we were here to get here. We were able to get here as quickly as possible.
01:13 We've been on the ground now since Wednesday.
01:16 At the end of the day today, we'll have served over 22,000 meals.
01:21 Not to mention we'll have water. We have trucks of ice.
01:24 We have insurer, whatever the people need here.
01:26 We have 14 to 15 vans, trucks, caravan, caravanning into the affected areas every day.
01:35 And we're doing whatever we can to help the people here in Maui.
01:39 What are some of the greatest challenges in getting food to the Hawaiian Islands?
01:43 I mean, it's a long way to travel when it's trying to come from the U.S. mainland, for example.
01:49 No, that's great. And we have some great partnerships here.
01:53 I'm just outside of the University of Hawaii, the Maui campus.
01:57 We have a group called Chef Hui that's been helping us.
02:00 It's 30 chefs. It's volunteers.
02:03 It's an amazing operation to be able to put these meals together, to get these meals to where they're going.
02:10 The meals have been delicious.
02:13 Today, they have pork, emo style. So it's culturally appropriate.
02:19 It's what the people here want to eat. And we're just glad to be part of this and working with the community to serve people.
02:26 John, where are you finding the people in need of the greatest help?
02:30 Are we talking about displaced families who lost their homes or people who are physically in shelters?
02:35 It's a little bit all the above. So we've set up distribution sites in three to four different areas.
02:42 But we also have people going into the communities.
02:45 We have vans. We have trucks. We have, again, the ice.
02:49 We have water going into these communities. And sometimes it's just it's just going door to door.
02:54 It's it's it's it's working with local people that know the area, that have family there, that know people.
03:01 And really just following them into finding these these pockets of need,
03:05 people that can't make it out to the main distribution sites, that may not be able to make it to the shelters.
03:10 You know, we're going out and finding them and making sure that they're taken care of.
03:15 And how can people help your work in Hawaii?
03:19 Yes. So World Central Kitchen is funded primarily by individuals.
03:24 Most of our most of our donations come from individuals.
03:28 If anybody wants to help out, please go to WCK dot o r g and donate.
03:34 Know that your money is going to helping the people here.
03:38 Again, we're going to ramp up. We're going to be here until the until the until the need is satisfied here.
03:44 We're going to be helping the people of Maui. We're working with the people of Maui.
03:48 We're supporting we're supporting the chefs. We're buying locally.
03:51 We're we're giving the people what they what they want here.
03:54 And it's it's really with the help of the community here in Maui.
03:57 They've been fantastic. All right. John Torpy there for World Central Kitchen.
04:02 John, you fight a tremendous fight, the whole team there. So thank you for your heart for people in a time of need.
04:08 Thank you so much. Appreciate.