Classrooms connect with farmers, chefs, locally grown food in new school program

The Hawai‘i ‘Ulu Cooperative has launched its new Hoʻopili ʻAi Program that connects keiki, teachers and school staff with farmers, chefs, and Hawaiʻi food crops, including kale, ʻuala, palaʻai and ‘ulu.

The cooperative partnered with the Hawaiʻi Farm to School Hui and Chef Hui to provide a variety of farm-to-school resources:

• Pre-packaged and ready-to-ship Farm to School cafeteria boxes filled with 25 pounds of pre-cooked and frozen starches for school food service staff to easily prepare for in-school student tasting samples.

• Farm-to-school classroom boxes that contain 25 individual 12-ounce bags of pre-cooked and frozen local starches for students and ʻohana to try at home.

• Every classroom box is paired with fun, educational videos and standards-aligned lesson plans for grades K-5. The Hoʻopili ʻAi video series follows four different crops – kalo (taro), ʻuala (sweet potato), palaʻai (pumpkin), and ‘ulu (breadfruit) – from the farm to the fork and are made to engage school staff, students and their families with a closer connection to locally-grown foods. 

You can support the Hawai‘i ‘Ulu Cooperative and the Hoʻopili ʻAi program by purchasing a box for your child’s class or by sponsoring a box for a teacher who has requested one. Teachers can request a sponsored box by filling out this form.

For more information on this program, please sign up for the Hawai‘i Farm to School Hui newsletter, and visit https://ulu.coop/hoopiliai.