Triple J, Ina’s Kitchen work together to help Karidat

From left, Triple J Five Star Wholesale general manager Jay Santos, Bishop Ryan Jimemez, Karidat counselor Elaine dela Cruz, Karidat executive director Lauri B. Ogumorro, Ina’s Kitchen Chef Sonnie Sablan with his parents and Payless SuperFresh general manager Morgan Carrico. (Bea Cabrera)

The combined efforts of Triple J Five Star Wholesale and Payless SuperFresh & Truckload Store and Ina’s Kitchen resulted in more than a thousand-dollars’ worth of donation to Karidat Social Services last Friday.

The former supplied meat at a reasonable price so that the latter can make it into a scrumptious dish called “Wet Tacos” for the month of September where a portion of the sales went to Karidat’s food bank to help the community. That amounted to $1,315 donated to Karidat last Friday at Ina’s Kitchen in Sadog Tasi.

Sonnie Sablan, head chef of Ina’s Kitchen, explained that plan was to donate 20% of sales out of the collaboration with Triple J for the whole month of September of the “Wet Tacos” promotion. “We were very successful as we sold 487 plates of tacos, which came out somewhere $6,000 worth of sales and 20% of that, which was $1,315, what we gave to Karidat,” he added.

According to Triple J Five Star Wholesale general manager Jay Santos, he and Sablan had this conversation “and I told him tacos are really popular in the mainland right now and maybe we could do a special and let everybody experience it. But even better was his idea of adding a dish in his menu called ‘Wet Tacos’ with Certified Angus beef from us using the portion of the sales to donate the money to Karidat and so the real winners here are Chef Sonnie and the Ina’s Kitchen Team.”

Karidat executive director Lauri B. Ogumoro said the donation will go straight to their food bank. Right now, Karidat is spending $20,000 a month to feed people “so this will help a lot towards our food voucher program.”

“We would like to thank Ina’s Kitchen and Triple J for thinking of us and choosing Karidat to receive the generous donation. The partnership between Triple J and Ina’s Kitchen is great, and this donation will go a long way to help with our food project to help those in our community who are really struggling with effects the pandemic,” she said.

Ogumoro said Karidat, which maintains a food pantry for charity, has given out food bags but, besides from being short-staffed, they also wanted people to keep practicing social distancing. That is when Karidat counselor Elaine Dela Cruz and team came up with the idea of giving out food vouchers to local grocery stores so recipients can have autonomy, and purchase what they eat, she said.

Ogumoro also detailed the amount of the vouchers given out depends on the family size and how much money Karidat has to distribute at the time. To determine this, Karidat case workers will talk to the family over the phone and categorize their needs and place a nominal value to be allotted per month. “We try to make [the funding] last and we have been helping people every month since the pandemic started. …We also advise these families to seek additional support if needed from other organizations, Salvation Army or Empty Vessel to fill the gaps as our food vouchers are not meant to completely sustain them throughout the month but more like supplement their needs. Unfortunately, we just don’t have that type of funding. Nevertheless, there may be programs that are going to come out and we will try to get a grant but for the time being this system is works,” she added.

To help promote Inas’ Kitchen’s Wet Taco campaign as well as create awareness leading to the purchases from the community, Triple J hosted two campaigns last month: Feed Yourself & Someone Else, with two winners: London Cabrera of Kagman and Kelsey Leila Lizama of Kagman.