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Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island

Darnell Sugioka of Project Vision wields a sanitizing gun to clean out vacated shower stalls, Thursday at the All Saints Episcopal Church.

Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island

Nurse Pat Coon deals with ‘pancakes,’ Thursday while trying to retrieve notes of a patient, Thursday at the All Saints Episcoal Church.

Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island

Allen Huber and Darnbell Sugioka check on who’s next to the vacated Hi‘ehi‘e mobile hot showers, Thursday at the All Saints Episcopal Church.

Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island

Susan Oshiro Taogoshi, June Munos and Kaleigh Ramil of Ho‘ola Lahui Hawai‘i wait for residents to finish their lunch before talking to them about COVID-19 testing, Thursday at the All Saints Episcopal Church relief day.

KAPA‘A — There was no room for anyone else to get a shower Thursday during the relief day efforts held at the All Saints Episcopal Church.

KAPA‘A — There was no room for anyone else to get a shower Thursday during the relief day efforts held at the All Saints Episcopal Church.

“There’s no room,” said Darnell Sugioka, who watched a young man enter the relief area with a skateboard. “So sorry. There’s absolutely no room. Everything is spoken for.”

The Project Vision Hi‘ehi‘e mobile hot shower unit had booked a full house of 16 showers, the most in the three sites serviced by the mobile hot shower unit.

“We also maintain a schedule at the Salvation Army, Lihu‘e and Hanapepe Corps,” said Allen Huber that is currently in charge of the Hi‘ehi‘e shower unit. “This is the biggest amount of people who use the service.”

Sugioka said the key to relief lies in the shower.

“You take a shower, first,” she said. “Then, there’s hot meals, free clothes, and even the Laundry Love program where the All Saints Episcopal Church volunteers do the laundry.”

The hot meals are shared between the All Saints Episcopal Church, and Project Vision.

“We do some of the meals when the church cannot,” Huber said. “It’s about sharing. A friend of mine cooked the kalua pork.”

Huber also started accepting donations of clothes that the relief day clients could enjoy following their hot shower.

“I also went our and purchased some clothes,” Huber said. “Right now, we need donations of men’s t-shirts and board shorts. That’s what everybody is asking for.”

Rounding out the services available, a team from Ho‘ola Lahui Hawai‘i offered information on COVID-19, free face masks, and free home test kits as well as information on tobacco cessation.

Registered Nurse Pat Coon offered free wound care for the steady stream of people that flowed through the shade of the kamani tree near the All Saints Gym in the shadow of food trucks vending their wares to a throng of lunchtime diners.

Coon started out doing relief Wound Care for the Ho‘omana Thrift Store relief effort before extending her reach to both Salvation Army locations, and the All Saints Episcopal Church.

“We need to ask the hard question,” said Susan Oshiro Taogoshi of Ho‘ola Lahui who has experienced the field conditions of everything from COVID-19 vaccine administration, information awareness, and more. “Where are these people going to go?”

The Project Vision Hi‘ehi‘e hot shower program was started during the Shelter in Place camps at some of Kaua‘i’s beach parks for the homeless. The program has expanded to bring mobile hygiene to people at the Salvation Army, Lihu‘e and Hanapepe Corps, and the All Saints Episcopal Church.

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