Food, fun and feeding kupuna are the focus for the seventh annual Rice Fest, Sunday at Ward Village.

The festival celebrates rice in Hawaii, which organizers call the world’s melting pot for the otherwise ordinary grain.

Offering rice and many other food items for sale will be more than a dozen vendors, including food booths and Eat the Street food trucks such as Bao Boys, Da Bolalohan, Hawaii’s Fried Musubi, Indian Grill, the Pig & the Lady and the SPAMERICAN Food Tour truck.

While you eat, you can watch celebrities and chefs competitively cook, and see other people competitively eat. There will be separate eating contests involving Spam musubi and Pa‘ina Cafe poke bowls.

Live entertainment also will fill Auahi Street near Ward Centre.

The event’s main purpose is to raise funds and collect brown rice donations for Lanakila Meals on Wheels, a nonprofit organization that provides Oahu’s only islandwide meal delivery program for senior citizens.

Booths throughout the festival will accept monetary donations, as well as donations of brown rice, to be used by Lanakila Meals on Wheels for the seniors it serves.

In the event’s earlier years, donations were taken only at the Lanakila Pacific booth, but now are accepted at multiple booths.

“There are three partner companies producing the event, including myself, and we actually donated more to Lanakila than took home ourselves,” said event founder Ed Sugimoto. “It truly is a passion project for all of us and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Brown rice is requested because Lanakila serves only the fiber-rich, less-processed rice for its health-conscious meals.

“Two hundred pounds of rice produces about 2,000 meals for needy seniors,” Sugimoto said. “Lanakila moves about 2,000 meals per day for the seniors, so it’s like they need 200 pounds of rice every day.”