PHOTOS: Volunteers Planting Homeless Community Resources
By Madeline Ziecker
A volunteer at KHAKO weeding to make room for more plants in the community garden. Photo by Madeline Ziecker.
Along the winding Waiale Road in outer Wailuku sits Ke Hale A Ke Ola (KHAKO), a homeless resource center which has been operating since 1993.
The agency serves as a link to helping clients with medical health, mental health, childcare, vocational rehabilitation, and financial aid in Maui.
Thanks to the help of a new grant, a community garden is being planted at Ke Hale A Ke Ola by the Community Work Day Program.
It is one of 16 “Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW)” gardens in Maui County allowed for implementation under the grant.
Only four female volunteers showed up one Tuesday to work at the garden, but together the women made a lot of progress in clearing weeds and laying mulch. The garden is located at 670 Waiale Road in Wailuku. Photo by Madeline Ziecker.
The grant was established by the Centers for Disease Control with help from First Lady Michelle Obama and is in collaboration with the Hawaii State Health Department, NPAC, and UH Maui College.
Some of the goals of Communities Putting Prevention to Work are providing outreach to High Risk community members by helping them with nutritional education and creating physical activity opportunities.
Maui’s Community Work Day Program received grant funding in December 2011 but has been actively working on the grant since the summer of 2010.
A view of the garden in progress. Photo by Madeline Ziecker.
Community Outreach Coordinator for CPPW, Matt Lane, says they choose locations such as Ke Hale A ke Ola to build their gardens because it is in accord with the CPPW grant’s goal to provide high risk community members with a fresh nutrition source.
“KHAKO is such an amazing property to work on and the community and children there are a pleasure to work with,” said Lane.
Lane said the grant goal is to establish 16 gardens this year in Maui County, “but with additional funding we may be able to continue this program and build many more gardens around Maui,” he said.
Community Work Day Program aims to eventually create a sustainable, native, edible garden at KHAKO. Plants and seeds for the garden are donated or collected by volunteers.
Some of the plants that have already been implemented in the garden are lemongrass, lillikoi, sweet potato, snap peas, papaya, banana, and aloe.
Photo by Madeline Ziecker.
Trisha, one of the steadfast gardeners at KHAKO’s community garden, says that on most afternoons after school some of KHAKO’s children gather to come help with planting.
She says that her goal in the project is to bring back native, edible gardens on Maui and “to create a safe, nurturing working space for the community.”
When asked what the most rewarding aspect of working with the Community Work Day Program was, outreach coordinator Matt Lane said, “It feels like the best project I could be involved in. It’s a great job. Over the past year it makes more and more sense to me every day.”
Children stopping by to participate in gardening. Photo by Madeline Ziecker.
“By building strategically placed gardens in schools and communities with volunteers we help educate about nutrition, create physical activity, support local economy, create food security, and change the whole dynamic of an island that imports almost 90% of it is food,” said Lane.
“Why look outside your community when we can change the habits of our youth at home to help support all of this? It prevents disease, keeps our kids strong, healthy, teaches them about food, and manages our resources right here at home.
If we could just manage our food and resources at home it could change the world. Thinking locally is acting globally,” said Lane.
Volunteers for the Community Work Day Program meet from 11-4 p.m. every Tuesday at the Homeless Resource Center of Maui Ke Hale A Ke Ola or Wednesdays at 3361 Omaopio Road, Kona Red headquarters upcountry where another greenhouse garden is in progress.
For more information on how to get involved with Community Work Day Program, visit the Community Work Day Program Facebook page.
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