Bringing color to the Children of Ke Hale A Ke Ola

After beginning our gardens at the Ke Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center this past summer, it became clear quite quickly that it was the children who were most engaged and excited about the gardens.  

 So, on September 11th as part of National Day of Service CWD/CPPW partnered with Voluntourism and HandsUpMaui to create a day JUST for the children.  Island Artist Caro Walker, who was the set designer for Ulalena, donated time to work on an outline of a beautiful mural on the backwalls of the childrens center.  The mural was of little-brother Kalo sitting under the umbrella of a huge Kalo leaf...above is head was a rainbow, and the Goddess of Rain raining down the abundance from the clouds.  

At 10am, 28 excited children came running over to the childrens center ready to get dirty.  Lucky, HandsUpMaui had donated some T-shirts for the event, so we got the kids dressed and introduced them to the mural.  

"This is the best thing I have ever done" I heard one boy exclaim.  

"I'm good at this- another girl said- and I have never done this before".  

I gasped, what do you mean you have NEVER done this before...what Painted???  The little girl was 7 years old, and she had in fact NEVER painted in her life.  And indeed, she was a natural. 

We had children from 3-12 years old that day, working together to make their space more beautiful.  Their hand-prints became the fern-garden along the entry-way...A Hawaiian Stilt became the "Big Bird" leading the way into the Childrens center.  

When the kids needed a break, we had healthy snacks and fruit donated by Hana Farms and Tribe.  Other kids played music with Waylon Rich a local musician, and learned some new cords on the ukelele.  

In the afternoon we built 3 beautiful cedar and redwood garden boxes just for the kids plants and filled the boxes with the children.  They got to learn about making a lasagna with the various materials that we sourced from the island.  Cinder, Horse Manure, Seaweed, Comfrey Leaf, Worm Castings Compost and top soil.  Each of the kids got to pick their own plant to put into the garden beds...and as they planted each of their 'babies' into the beds...they would whisper as they patted them gingerly in place..."goodnight...welcome home".  

I realized as I heard the children welcoming their plants into their new home that this actually what we were doing with the children as well...Welcoming them home.  When we connect children to the land, and their food source, their creativity, and we give them a space to express themselves, empowering them to make decisions- and we honor them and sing with them and encourage them- we create a sense of HOME for these children who have literally grown up hearing that they are homeLESS.

It was a profound day- a day I will remember forever.  And a reminder that Home is truly where the Heart is...and when you have LOVE...you are NEVER homeless.  

The kids working with Caro Walker on the mural.  Tiffany the Director of the Childrens Center came with some helping hands for the day. 

Some of the mothers came and lended a helping hand for the day

Artist Caro Walker getting gloves on one of the kids

Yes, and of course the kids had a blast being allowed to get as messy as they wanted to

Painting brother Kalo 

The rainbow gets it's color back

Waylon Rich playing with the kids at breaktime

growing happy plants and happy kids

These are a few of the boys who exclaimed that it was the "best thing they had ever done".  They were in charge of painting the Hawaiian Stilt on the way into the center and they did an incredible job. 

wonderlust and handprints

Naith is an exceptional woman who lives at the Center with her 3 children, she has been so involved in the gardens and in connecting the children with their food source.  She came out to cheer us all on as we built the children 3 new garden beds.  

 

After the workday was over, the kids still wanted to "work"...so we took them down to the main community garden on the site and planted additional fruit trees, flowers, and beneficial plants to introduce more diversity as well as creating planting guilds that the kids call "giving the other plants friends to play with".  

At the beginning of the day...

At the end of the day....quite a transformation already....

Ke Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center

On July 22nd, CWD, The Water Dept, Voluntourism and Whole Foods came together to begin a garden for the Homeless Resource Center of Maui.  Nearly 1600 people go through here each year, and so I really can't think of a site that could benefit more from a garden.  The vision here is to really green the entire property- planting natives, windbreaks, fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and ornamentals all throughout the property- with the main-focused garden being a site that was given to us to use (which unfortunately was an old sand-filled drainage ditch).   The goal for this garden is to not only have a vegetable and herb area of the garden that can help to feed the residents, but also to plant a variety of plants and include landscape features that lend themselves to new job creation for those in need.  I figured that each new element that I put into the garden could actually be an educational component in and of itself.  For example- the irrigation- we can teach others how to properly install an irrigation system into a garden, and show a few examples of different systems at work.  We can have a rock-wall building workshop on site, where we install the stairways into the garden and teach rock-building skills to the residents.  The fruit trees, spices, and herbs can all be used to make value added products- and so we hope to get the folks from Hana Farms out for a day to teach the art of making products from the land. (They specialize in Banana bread, jams, jelly's, hot sauce, ice-cream, spice rubs, and candy's).  The native garden has plants that can be used for lei making, jewelry making, tapa dying, basket-weaving and seed saving.  It is an ambitious vision- but I have felt led every step of the way.

This project brought out some of the angels living on Maui.  Alex Beers answered a Craigslist ad of mine, and came out with a huge load of compost to donate to the site, unloaded it by the shovelfull, and then showed up the next day to work an entire 8 hour day with me- winning himself the angel-of-the-day award!  Kim his son Kai from Maluhia trucking donated countless hours of backhoe work and trucking in of materials.  Jay Carpio from Holon donated 2 days of free labor into installing the fence that we got from Valley Isle Fencing.  Vince Mina and Ricky Apana donated soil amendments  , BioChar and countless hours of consulting free of charge, Voluntourism did hours of free outreach and brought us 14 volunteers for the day all extremely skilled and dedicated.  An extra special thank you to the generous spirits that gave above and beyond for this project: Lehuahana, Waylon Rich, Jeremiah Baca, Tribe, Amber Love, Mary Bailey, Eco-Island Supply, Alex Beers, Lehn Huff, Maile and Jay Carpio and family and Whole Foods market.  Thank you for all being such breathtaking reminders of the way that the divine subtly and gracefully moves through us~ and for reminding me that it takes a TRIBE to raise a garden.  Mahalo nui loa

Lehn Huff (aka the Fairy God-mother of the Maui School Gardens) Welcomed everyone to the workday with a smile, and a lot of confidentiality wavers to sign :)

Soil, or rather the lack there-of, had been our most limiting factor in this garden.  I don't want to lie and pretend that this garden was all fairies and rainbows...as I think that it is important to talk about the difficulties so that other people dealing with similar projects might be able to learn from it.  We had 120 yards of good top-soil/compost mix promised to us a month before the workday, only to have it fall through less than a week before go-time.  Who knew that on a tropical island, good soil would be so hard to come by.  But it is.  WIth a day to spare we got a few loads of dirt delivered, and amended it with compost donated by Alex Beers, Bio Char from Vince Mina and Ricky Apana, Sea-crop, Worm Castings, gypsum and seaweed extract.  Ideally we would have amended the pile of dirt for at least a month, but time was limited and we needed planting mix for the workday...We continued soil mixing on the day of the workday, and had to transport loads to our pre-dug holes via wheelbarrow.  Moving forward, my focus for the next few months is on soil building- as soil is the very foundation of the garden....and our plants are only as healthy as our soil.  

Volunteers begin planting the natives on the native hillside. 

The amazing Jeremiah Baca...who graciously jumped into a leadership role, worked so hard the whole day through, and did so the entire day long with a smile.  

Our Angel Alex Beers and Jeremiah Baca planting natives on the hillside. 

Meghan Sweet, Director at Voluntourism showed her support with her partner Dori.  They worked on irrigation installation and planting dozens of natives throughout the afternoon. 

It's coming along.  The Lauhala plant getting it's final top dressing of soil.  It was chosen as it is traditionally used for basketweaving.  The goal here is to provide as many outlets as possible for job-creation, nourishment and inspiration through the garden. 

Shannon Carpio (Maile's daughter) waters in all of the new plantings.

Tricia and Julia fill buckets of our planting mix...

Rebekah lays out the plants to be planted

Matt Lane stopped by with Paul Hunting (Head of the CDC), and Dr Pang to show them the site, and plant a few banana trees before moving along to show them the next proposed garden sites.  This project was made possible through a grant given through the CDC called Communities Putting Prevention to Work.  THe mission is to reach out to 'at risk' communities throughout Maui County (who are either low-income, or have high rates of heart-disease and obesity etc...), and to get them engaged in planting a community garden which provides them local-organic food, gets communities active, and where we help to educate people about their food choices.  It's wonderful to see that the Center for Disease control is being proactive about holistic health- and understanding just how important nutrition is to long-term health.  

The natives hillside fills in

Tricia, Jeffrey and Alex....angels in the dust

Taking a much needed lunch break- thanks to Whole Foods for not only sending us such wonderful support, but also for nourishing us throughout the day. 

Matt Lane stopped by with the head of the CDC- Paul Hunting, Dr Pang, and a group of others who are working under the CDC grant- Communities Putting Prevention to Work

The next thing needing planting is Alex

It takes a tribe to raise a garden

Such beautiful bright souls- THank you all for coming out

Residents from the Homeless Resource Center helped to lend a hand in the courtyard 

The beautiful Elyse from Whole Foods helped to lead the Courtyard-Greening Team along with Lehuahana (standing in the backround talking with CWD director Rae Chandler and Maile Carpio) They tilled up the old soil, and removed wheelbarrows full of old roots and grasses, and planted over a hundred natives throughout the area, and prepped the bottom for a SYNlawn to be installed later this week. 

Jeremiah's lovely mother and father came out to lend a hand on their vacation...

Always working with a beaming bright smile

Dori lends a hand planting natives, and works with Cole installing irrigation

Waylon Rich and Jeffrey working hard until the end

Last natives going in for the day

THe last ones standing...dirty, nourished, and ready for a long-hot-shower.  THank you all so so much for sticking it out until the end, you make this project possible through your dedication, love and big-beautiful hearts.  

Some of the girls who live at the Resource Center came out to check on the work, and they reaaally wanted to lend a hand 

Waylon and Jeremiah led the tree planting station- we got nearly 30 bananas and 15 papayas and 10 lilikoi in the ground that day!

The girls help me put in irrigation- showing them the way that we install the 'spaghetti's' and emitters so that we have drip going to each of our natives