Kona restaurant’s Keiki Food Fund helps families struggling to climb back from pandemic

A West Hawai‘i restaurant is helping families struggling to climb back from the COVID-19 pandemic and it needs the community’s help to continue providing meals for Big Island keiki.

The Keiki Food Fund is the brainchild of Celeste and Taylor Cline, owners of Poi Dog Deli in Kailua-Kona. The program provides free meals from the restaurant’s Keiki Menu to any family in need.

“During the pandemic, we saw families struggling to put food on the table for their kids. Though our program is not to the size of our local food bank on the island, we continue to be blessed by those in our community that want to donate funds to this program in order to provide a healthy meal for our island keiki”, Celeste Cline said in a press release.

No purchase is required to receive a meal through the program.

So far, the program has provided more than 5,000 free meals to Big Island families. With continued cancellations of federal food products and food banks struggling to meet the needs of the community, the program is more important now than ever.

“However, as we are a local business also navigating through our new world, we are only able to keep this program completely free of charge when donations are coming in to help us cover the cost of food,” Taylor Cline said in the press release. “Our time to prepare the meal is our gift to the community.”

Kids should never go hungry, and Poi Dog Deli will continue to provide free keiki meals to those in need until donations run out.

Anyone can help and donations are essential. To help Poi Dog Deli with its mission to feed keiki, click here.

To use the Keiki Food Fund, parents can call 808-329-2917 to place an order before bringing their family into the restaurant. For more information, click here.