Culinary students and instructors at Kapiʻolani Community College spent weeks cooking hot meals in their teaching kitchen, freezing them, and flying them to Kauaʻi Community College after Hurricane Lowell tore through the island. The dishes, including sweet sour pork and chicken curry, were meant for students still digging out from storm damage, lost wages and weeks without power.
A Call Between Chancellors Sparks the Effort
The relief effort began after a conversation between Kauaʻi CC Chancellor Margaret Sanchez and Kapiʻolani CC Chancellor Misaki Takabayashi, who discussed immediate ways to support the Kauaʻi campus following the hurricane, according to University of Hawaiʻi System News. Sanchez said the hot meals supported the campus ʻohana and helped the community come together and heal, and added that the gift demonstrated aloha across the UH community colleges. Takabayashi said UH campuses help each other when needed, and that the effort let students experience the value of helping others.
Kapiʻolani CC culinary arts students and instructors prepared the food inside the college's teaching kitchen over multiple sessions, preparing roughly 150 to 200 pounds of food weekly. The team used a specialized cook-chill method to ensure food safety before the meals were frozen, flown to Kauaʻi and delivered to the Kauaʻi Community College cafeteria.
A Līhuʻe Native Chef Leads the Kitchen Crew
Chef Alan Tsuchiyama, a Līhuʻe native who grew up minutes from the Kauaʻi CC campus, helped lead the Kapiʻolani CC kitchen in the effort. Tsuchiyama said that helping Kauaʻi through food, finances or volunteering is important. Third-year culinary student Nalu Iwata eagerly volunteered to cook for the project and said he was proud to do the work and wanted to help people in Kauaʻi.
The meals arrived at a moment when many Kauaʻi CC students were still facing damaged homes, prolonged power outages and looming academic deadlines in the hurricane's aftermath. Student Hiʻilani Cremer, who was unable to work two weeks after the storm, said school meals helped tremendously while she was out of work. Brandon Routh said the meals helped students whose missed work hours had hurt their paychecks avoid having to buy food on their own.
Survey Shows How Widely the Storm Hit Students
A preliminary Kauaʻi Community College student impact survey found that Hurricane Lowell disrupted an estimated 80% of students' ability to participate in classes or complete coursework. The same survey found that 39.2% of responding students lost food or groceries and continued to worry about reliable access to meals and essential supplies, while 73.4% lost electricity and internet service. More than half, 53.2%, reported a loss of income or work hours, and 22.8% said their homes sustained direct damage.
Those outages tracked with what Kauaʻi's electric utility was reporting in the storm's immediate wake. Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative said approximately 90% of its members experienced an outage at some point during the storm, and warned that outages could last several days or longer in some areas. A separate update from the State of Hawaiʻi said more than 36,000 customers, also described as roughly 90% of KIUC customers, were without power one Tuesday morning after the storm.
Food Support Built on Earlier Campus Recovery Work
The culinary relief built on weeks of recovery work already underway at Kauaʻi CC. The campus hosted a Hurricane Lowell recovery resource event on Sept. 23, connecting students, faculty and staff with campus and community resources, according to Kauaʻi Now. The college had already served students a hot lunch on their first day back on campus and again during the resource event, with additional hot meals planned, and Domino's Pizza donated 50 pizzas for attendees at that same event.
Beyond meals, Kauaʻi CC's recovery response has included help applying for emergency aid and connections to mental health counselors from Kapiʻolani Community College and Honolulu Community College, per the university's earlier report. Hawaiʻi's community colleges have leaned on each other during disasters before: Community College Daily has reported on University of Hawaiʻi Maui College's response after the August 2023 wildfires on Maui, when then-Chancellor Lui Hokoana fielded urgent calls for help within hours of the fires breaking out.
