'We got kicked out of Sumida park three times for delivering food. I went to talk to the people in Taito-ku ward office and basically (it) came down to, 'well, you just can't deliver food here anymore,' " says Charles McJilton, executive director of Second Harvest Japan.

"I said, we both have an issue here. You have hungry people there, and we want to feed them. We don't want to create problems for your people in the park. How can we work together? And he didn't want to work together.

"What came out of this really illustrates the issue here in Japan between government and nonprofit organizations."