A woman came to our office on a recent Friday afternoon. She had one of her sons with her and was on the verge of tears from the emotional strain of living in a car with her children. She had a voucher for subsidized housing and had found an apartment, …
Poverty is characterized by insecurity, instability, and stress. When a family does not have enough money to meet even the basic needs of housing, food, transportation, and medicine, they will, by necessity, go without at least one of these essentials for some period of time. A family in poverty will …
2014 has been a hard year for Puna families. In addition to the usual challenges of poverty, isolation, and transportation, Hurricane Iselle came ashore over Puna early in the morning of August 9th, felling trees, closing roads, and forcing many in Puna to live without power for days or weeks. …
Hospitality, the willingness to offer shelter and food to strangers, is an ancient practice. It is a virtue praised in many religious traditions and an ethic that Neighborhood Place of Puna tries to embody. This ethic was tested late in the day, on the eve of the Veterans’ day holiday, …
Neighborhood Place of Puna services are built on relationships, relationships that deeply value each individual person. We help families who are trying to raise safe and healthy children. We provide emergency food assistance to families and individuals who are hungry. We are also helping individuals and families dealing with the …
Wednesday was a holiday here in Hawaii. Having a friend visiting from the mainland we struck out for day of sun and fun on West side of the Island. As we pulled into a parking spot at the beach, we noticed a naked two year old girl wondering around the …
Neighborhood Place of Puna is now providing intensive, ongoing, in-home, services to pregnant and parenting teens thanks to a grant from the Hawaii Children’s Trust Fund. NPP will help these teens connect to essential services, learn about pregnancy and parenting, and try to help the teen create a safe and …
Yesterday I heard the heart breaking story of elementary school children filling their pockets with food from lunch at school on Fridays. This is at a school where over 90% of the children qualify for free or reduced lunch, which means that the vast majority of the students attending the …
