Pa‘a - Durable, Solid, Secure

Can you support us getting pa‘a for 2024?

Aloha kākou,

It’s been an inspiring and fortifying year at Māla‘ai. As people enthusiastically continue to join the movement in support of school gardens and ʻāina-based learning, Māla‘ai has been in the soil growing new shoots. Over the past 5 years, we’ve expanded our programs, brought on new staff, and strengthened our organizational container. Now it is time to dig deep and nurture our roots. Our garden motto is pa‘ahana - or hard industrious work. Also directly translated to pa‘a— solid, durable, secure— and hana— work. Can you support us getting pa‘a for 2024?

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Māla‘ai is proud to be 25% grassroots-funded, meaning that 25% of our income comes from generous donations of all sizes from our grassroots community supporters. This support enables us to be resilient during challenges, pursue strategic goals, and meet community needs. We are in a phase of growing our budget and rooting ourselves with community support. We aim to raise $25,000 this month and we invite you to chip in. Every amount matters, whether $20, $200, $2,000, or $20,000+.

Program Updates

Graduating 8th Graders from after-school garden club, ‘22-‘23

Summer Seed Camp with Marielle Hampton, CTAHR

After-School Culinary Program showing off their homemade pickles!

Māla‘ai: The Culinary Garden of Waimea Middle School

We're celebrating another successful year at our Culinary Garden of Waimea Middle School, marked by an overwhelming interest in all of our programs, empowered keiki, and engaged educators.

By the end of the 2022-2023 school year, over 300 students, including 60+ graduating 8th graders (photo), and 30 educators had utilized the Māla‘ai Culinary Garden. We harvested 1,492 pounds of food from our garden, distributed 115 pounds of food from community members, gave away 35 pounds of planting material and 200 potted plants to students and families.

Three wonderful alumni students joined us as interns for a vibrant summer of gardening and community events, including a Seed Summer Camp collaboration with University of Hawaii’s CTAHR (College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources).

As the 2023-2024 school year began, students enthusiastically signed up for the After-School Culinary program and we started strong with full enrollment and a waiting list! So far this year, all 200 Waimea Middle School students participated in ʻāina-based education in the garden. Our educators collaborated with teachers from science, physical education (PE), health, social studies, writing/literacy classes, as well as other educators/teachers on a project-basis, to make the garden an accessible and enriching resource for the entire school.

The Culinary Garden continues to serve as a model school garden, serving keiki, families, and educators through our classes and programming.

Every generous gift will help our garden and education efforts become even more pa‘a in 2024.

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Kū ‘Āina Pā Alumni Reunion! Hopefully the first of many to come…

You can read more about all our programs on The Scoops Blog

Lunch catered by Sweet Cane Cafe for the HAAS workday

Hard working keiki at Kona Pacific PCS workday

The Hawai‘i Island School Garden Network

The Hawai‘i Island School Garden Network (HISGN), adopted by Māla‘ai in 2019, offers professional development, advocacy, mentorship, and technical assistance to over 60 school gardens across the county.

In the summer Māla‘ai hosted an educator reunion for Kū ‘Āina Pā, the HISGN educator training program which has trained over 300 kumu (teachers) in the past decade. This fall, with support from the county, HISGN co-hosted successful garden workdays with 4 different schools across our island! (Keep an eye our for 4 more this February!)

Within our statewide Hawai‘i Farm to School Hui, HISGN advocates for school gardens, agriculture education, and improved school food on the statewide level. Māla‘ai contributed to the newly-released Hawai‘i Farm to School Toolkit, which includes easy ways to integrate farm-to-school education into regular school culture.

Looking forward to 2024, HISGN will continue to provide site visits and support school garden workdays, community trainings, and assistance for teachers interested in ʻāina-based education.

We appreciate your generous investment in this cross-moku resource for pa‘a school gardens in Hawai‘i.

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6th grade students in our current classroom playing Garden Jeopardy

Garden Classroom Capital Campaign update

We’re building a garden classroom at Waimea Middle School! This structure will house activities and programming for WMS and the broader community through HISGN and other collaborations. We aim to raise over $700,000 for the project and are inviting Māla‘ai community support. Mahalo to those that have already helped get this project off the ground! Learn more about the Capital Campaign >>

Every gift to Māla‘ai this year helps us lead this significant project.

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Building a Pa‘a Organization

2023 marked beautiful growth and transitions for Māla‘ai. We’re steering through our 2022 Strategic Plan and taking intentional steps to bolster our organization and sharpen our programming! We've implemented two important internal systems this year: NRDS software for our programming to track data, outcomes and metrics; and MonkeyPod, which is an integrated accounting, fundraising and contact management software. These tools will service our work and help us build for the years to come. Mahalo for your support as we strengthen our organizational foundation.

Our ‘ohana of dedicated staff continues to grow! This year we brought on a new HISGN Program Director, Eleonor Leite-Ah Yo, who comes to Māla‘ai with a rich background in ethnomathematics and place-based education. We added an Operations Assistant to support necessary tasks and manage our office. This position joins the Executive Director to comprise a sustainable Executive Leadership team to carry the organization into its next phase. We’re happy to welcome Kahikina Kaae-Whittle as our new Operations Assistant.

We are honored to celebrate the final year of service from Holly Sargeant-Green, the Garden Program Leader at WMS for the past decade-plus. Zoe Kosmas, the 2021- 2023 Executive Director and former Garden Assistant, will be transitioning into the Garden Program Director role; we are honored to have the manaʻo of the Executive Director stay on our team for the years to come, and excited to welcome a new Executive Director at the end of the year (announcement coming soon!).

Mahalo for your generous donations to Māla‘ai this year. This exciting staff growth is helping us get pa‘a!

Māla‘ai Staff 2023

Zoe Kosmas, Executive Director
Kahikina Kaae-Whittle, Operations Assistant
Holly Sargeant Green, Garden Program Director
Gabriel Grosshuesch, Garden Program Assistant
Eleonor Leite-Ah Yo, HISGN Program Director
Donna Mitts, HISGN Outreach Coordinator, Garden Educator

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Māla‘ai Team, including consultant Jess Heaney and Eleonor’s awesome keiki!

The wonderful Holly Sargeant-Green

We’ve built a strong container to hold our organization and thriving programs. We hope this kāhea reaches our community and inspires you to make a gift to Māla‘ai this month. Grassroots donations are what allow us to be flexible and responsive to needs of community, while steering toward the future our keiki and ʻāina deserve. Can you help us take Māla‘ai to the next level?

Alumni student Jerneen giving a powerful speech at the Chefs on the Beach, Culinary Classic fundraiser event with the Mauna Lani.

Weʻre inviting gifts of $20, $200, $2,000, $20,000 and even $200,000! Every amount is an important seed; mahalo for giving what you can.

Here are ways to give:

Donate online: Join us with a one time donation! Click here.
Sustain: Become a sustaining donor with monthly or yearly recurring donations. Donate here.
Mail a check: Checks can be made out and addressed to Māla‘ai; please send to PO Box 543, Kamuela, HI 96743.
Transfer from Financial Institution: You can use our EIN#: 51-0646670 to make a direct transfer from your investment institution, or contact us for a direct bank transfer.