Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry: Helping Hearts, Serving Our Community
By Lara Hughes
Helping people is a common theme that both John and Theresa Kaiwi have enjoyed throughout their lives. Theresa and John run Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry, in Hilo.
John graduated from Kamehameha Schools and University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He is a Navy combat veteran who now serves as the neighbor island area manager for a Hawai‘i-based employment agency. Theresa is from San Antonio, Texas, and ran a number of different businesses before retiring and moving to Hawai‘i in 2015. They met in Kona in 2016, and moved to Hilo in 2018. Theresa glows, “When we met, we knew immediately that we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together!”
The couple teamed up for the first time in May 2018 to volunteer when the lava eruption hit Leilani Estates. In 2019, still wanting to help feed those in need, they started Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry, first delivering lunches to 20 people. Today they help distribute more than 350 meals per week, and their corporate partners include The Salvation Army, IHOP, The Food Basket, and Southwest Airlines.
Having Heart
John used to take the bus to school and he would have to walk through Fort Street Mall in Honolulu on the way. He remembers keeping change in his pocket after buying 25-cent coffees. He would give the extra money to the people on the street. At the time, John also worked in the cathedral parish, answering phones in the evening for the chancery. They would give out peanut butter sandwiches to the homeless who would come in. “I would always give them two, or three, or four, and I would always get in trouble with the pastor,” he says, laughing. “Growing up, I always had that heart—I can’t see people go hungry.”
Later, John joined the Navy and served as a combat search and rescue operator attached to a helicopter combat squadron in Kuwait during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He reflects, “There were a lot of different missions that we were on, whether it be a medevac, or rescuing a sailor from an explosion on a ship, to rescuing Navy SEALs that are literally running for their lives at an extraction point, or rescuing civilians on the water.” John does not recall how many people he helped rescue, but he says, “It was a lot.” He still remembers the feeling he had after his first rescue mission: “We were aboard the USS Detroit and we were called out to a United States Navy frigate where there was a sailor in a boiler room that blew up. It was below deck and it was very hot. We had to pull the guy out and medevac him…It was so rewarding; I was so happy that the Lord pushed me toward that heart that I already had instead of taking lives.”
Just like John, Theresa has always had a passion for helping others. She and her four siblings were raised by her grandmother in San Antonio. “I remember as a child, she converted our garage into this area where she had boxes and boxes of clothing labeled for all different sizes. She would have this key around her neck for when homeless people would come to the house. My grandmother would sit them down on the front porch and go in and get them clothes, and go to the kitchen and make them food, and she would give them whatever little bit of change she had in her pocket. That is where I saw the giving heart.” Theresa recalls her oldest brother telling their grandmother his concerns that the people she was helping were not stable and his worry that one of them might harm her. “My grandma looked at him with that confident face that she always had and she said, ‘What if it is God knocking at the door and I don’t answer it. I cannot live with myself knowing that it could be our Lord and I have turned him away. If it is my time to go, it is my time to go.’” Theresa says, “That is the way I live my life—you never know who you are going to help and no one is above anyone.”
Theresa went on to become a successful business owner. “I ran all sorts of businesses, from full-service luxury spas to telecommunication companies, and eventually worked for Nationwide Insurance. I was working anywhere from 12 to 16-hour days, and I said, ‘That’s enough’. I decided to retire and move to Hawai‘i.” When asked what drew her to Hawai‘i, Theresa says, “I just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to live in Hawai‘i.” She moved to Hilo, sight unseen, in 2015.
The 2018 Lava Flow in Puna
John and Theresa started volunteering together with Puna Relief after the volcanic eruption in Leilani Estates forced people to abandon their homes in May 2018. Their church asked people if they could help fill volunteer shifts to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The hardest shift to fill was the 3am breakfast shift every Thursday. John recalls, “We volunteered every Thursday at 3am from May all the way until October.” They would prepare the food—scrambled eggs, sausage, rice, quiche, and fresh fruit. They would do all the dishes, load everything into a van, drive it over, and set it up. When they started serving, Theresa says there were about 300 people that came every morning, and when they ended in October, there were about 17 people who were still displaced. There were a lot of volunteers when they started in May; John and Theresa were the last two volunteers serving food.
The Birth of Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry
Helping people during the 2018 eruption inspired the couple, and in January 2019 John said to Theresa, “I just feel like we aren’t doing enough.” In the early morning on March 25, John had been to downtown Hilo. He went back home and woke Theresa up, “You know, downtown is tent city in the middle of the night? These people are hungry,” to which Theresa replied, “Okay, what do you want to do?”
On March 29 they served 20 brown bag lunches to the homeless. “We made them ourselves,” Theresa says excitedly, “We went and bought bread, peanut butter, jelly, little snacks, and juice pouches.” This was done with their own funds and coordinated with The Salvation Army to distribute the lunches from their facilities. They handed out the bag lunches and The Salvation Army invited them to come back the following week.
Their joy was infectious and after sharing her experience at hula the following Monday, a few women came up to Theresa to ask how they could help, “Five or six of my hula sisters asked, ‘What do you need?’ and I said, ‘Okay, each loaf of bread feeds 10 people. So, you bring two loaves, you bring two loaves, you bring a jar of peanut butter, and you bring a jar of jelly….The next Friday we fed 40 people.’”
Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry was born. Soon, the hula sisters brought their husbands and it wound up being 17 people contributing every Friday morning. They now serve up to 200 bag lunches every Friday, and so far, the only Friday they have missed as a group was when news of the coronavirus broke out in Hawai‘i.
Helping during Coronavirus
After they skipped that one Friday, John and Theresa renewed their dedication to provide food for Hilo’s homeless. With the lockdown causing fewer people to be available for charity, and closed restaurants having no leftovers to give away, meeting the needs of the homeless has become more challenging than ever.
In response, the Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry expanded their services and now provides food to the homeless and others in need twice a day on Tuesdays and Fridays, and in the evening on Saturdays.
Theresa also began sewing face masks in April, which they give away for free. The couple were featured on the KHON2 news, which got the attention of the Hilo IHOP staff. After seeing what Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry was doing, the manager contacted them to get involved.
IHOP staff began making 20 plates to donate, and now provides 50 plates during the Tuesday and Friday offerings provided by Brown Bag Ministry and The Salvation Army.
“What I noticed,” says John, “is that when we started this it was just the homeless…now we have white-collar and blue-collar people that are unemployed. I see people like you and me standing in line, waiting for meals—children, as well. They just lost their jobs—they ran out of resources.”
Their serving hearts did not stop there. John also jumps on his bike every other day to deliver Food Basket supplies and snack packs that Southwest Airlines donated to The Salvation Army. “Total round trip from our house,” John says, “is about 20 miles.”
He also takes face masks that Theresa sews and hands those out as well. Their masks are available for free on the Hawaii Brown Bag Ministry’s website for anyone who needs them. To date, Theresa has made and donated more than 1,300 masks.
At the End of the Day
Theresa is a firm believer that the more we help, the more we get. She reflects, “We are enthusiastic about making a change in our community and we know that change starts with us. If we don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it.” ❖
For more information: hawaii-brown-bag-ministry.business.site/
