At Heart: This Food Truck Is Trying to Hold Maui Communities Together
Four months after the fires, Maui Fresh Streatery’s weekly food boxes help families housing displaced relatives.
Where the Heart Is
Maui Fresh Streatery | Fujiya Hawai‘i | Little Vessels | Central O‘ahu Event Center
In the world of food and restaurants, the most resonant stories go beyond what’s on the table. Here’s Part 1 of the four-part package “Where the Heart Is” in the December 2023/January 2024 issue of HONOLULU Magazine.
Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
Mālama Kekahi I Kekahi
In normal times, Maui Fresh Streatery slings up feel-good food: spicy ‘ahi poke bombs, pork tenderloin hoagies, pastele stew, squid lū‘au. Normal times ended with the Maui wildfires in August. Since then, Kyle Kawakami has converted his food truck into a mobile response unit—but not by driving Streatery into stricken areas with free meals, as he’s done before. This time, with Maui’s needs stretching into an uncertain future, he organizes weekly ingredient boxes for households whose numbers have swelled with displaced family and friends.
Using donations to his tip jar and Venmo, Kawakami sources from Maui Cattle Co., S&J Bakery, Kumu Farms, Maui Specialty Chocolates, Tropic Fish Maui and Costco. Maui Food Bank donates ingredients; Maui Rapid Response, a citizen effort, identifies 30 at-risk households each week.
“If you look at it in terms of a cycle,” Kawakami says, “you donate money to me, I buy food from local vendors—so that money goes to someone that lives here in our economy—they provide me with product, that goes to somebody in need. We’re supporting everybody.”
Here’s his story, edited for length and clarity.
SEE ALSO: Donations to Maui Are Flowing In
Kyle Kawakami: Maui, we’re still a small community. We’re a little busier than the Big Island or Kaua‘i, but we’re not like O‘ahu. We still know our neighbors. You ask anybody on Maui, they know at least a dozen people that were affected by the fires or facing some kind of hardship.
For me, the ultimate goal is to keep the community together. When I hear people say, “I’m thinking about moving off the island,” that’s devastating. Already both parents need to work, and kids have a hard time finding jobs that pay for the price of paradise. To have these fires compounding it … As someone born and raised on the island, proud of being on Maui, I’m just trying to do whatever I can to help.
What I identified as an area of food insecurity was families that have taken in others. People that had extended families that lost multiple homes. I know a family of four that now has 19 in the home, or a family of eight that has 10 or 15 living with them.
The chef-driven meal boxes are designed to feed a family of 10. You’re getting breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days, so 90 meals out of each box. And I’m doing 30 boxes.
“For me, the ultimate goal is to keep the community together.”
– Kyle Kawakami
Maybe that week’s box gets 10 pounds of chicken thighs. I work with the Food Bank and OK, I can get stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes, and I start creating a Sunday baked chicken supper. As somebody that’s not a chef, you would be able to look at that box and see a direction of what meals you can make. The last box we did had rice, imitation crab, mayonnaise, nori. There was a little card in there—how to make baked sushi. They also typically get a 5-pound bag of rice, a flat of eggs, fresh tomatoes, fresh papaya and a pineapple, supporting the local agriculture.
Photo: Aaron K. Yoshino
A lot of the local farms, local bakers, local ranchers, these guys were supplying product to hotels and restaurants. That whole “Maui is closed” initiative that happened in the first weeks dried up our tourism. Not only could these places not sell anything to Lahaina, they couldn’t sell to other places.
But early on, everyone was like here, take the buns, or take the hamburger. Now I tell them, “Hey, I need to support you guys. If you want to cut me a little break, that’s great, but I’m not asking for freebies.”
Sometimes, farms will throw in a little something extra. We’ll buy lettuce or string beans or whatever, and they’ll toss in a couple cases of papaya so I can give some papaya to each family. And that’s fantastic.
I might not be able to do everything or feed everyone, but we can do our best. The people of Hawai‘i, at the end of the day, we’re all in the same boat, the same canoe. We gotta try and take care of each other.
