Whole Foods Kahului Cultivates Partnership with The Maui Farm

The soon to open Whole Foods Market at the Maui Mall in Kahului has established a partnership with the non-profit agency: The Maui Farm.

Photo Courtesy Whole Foods Market/The Maui Farm

As part of the partnership, the store will hold a Community Support Day in which five percent of its net sales from Wednesday, March 3, 2010 will go to The Maui Farm.  The funds will help the nonprofit group nurture individual and family self-sufficiency through farm-based, family style residential programs.

“The Maui Farm is planting seeds and growing families, contributing to a stronger community by teaching healthy values and environmental stewardship. We encourage all of our program participants to nurture not only themselves, but the land and the ocean, and the people, plants and animals around them,” said Paula Ambre, executive director, The Maui Farm. “We are excited to work with Whole Foods Market, whose own beliefs are very much in harmony with our own, to help provide a safe, rich and nurturing environment for Maui’s youth and families.”

The Maui Farm is a nonprofit organization that provides family-style residential programs for individuals and families in transition to self-sufficiency. Since 1993, The Maui Farm has provided long-term group home programs serving foster youth and other youth with emotional and behavioral challenges with hands on-experiential activities.

In 2006, The Maui Farm began offering a family strengthening program for homeless families which includes transitional housing and an array of life skills training.  Today, the agency continues to grow its services for the Maui community by offering training programs and farm-based experiential activities programs for interested community groups serving youth and families.

Whole Foods Market team members will also volunteer at The Maui Farm on Thursday, February 11, to help harvest and plant seeds for an herb garden.  The Maui Farm will be selling herb starts in the store’s floral department.

Whole Foods Market’s Maui store will be the company’s second Hawai‘i location. The 26,366-square-foot store is on-schedule to open February 24 at 9 a.m. with the brand’s signature bread breaking ceremony.