Malama Kauai

Increasing food production - providing education, technical assistance, and funding to farmers, with a focus on small to medium and minority farmers: through various subsidized feeding programs, we have aggregated and distributed a significant amount of local food for producers islandwide; helped to distribute 215,000+ in grants to 40 individual farmers for food safety upgrades, alongside the largest food safety training success on kaua'Kauai'i to date; fiscally sponsored 2 large grants for farmer groups for water systems management: moloa'a irrigation cooperative and waioli valley taro hui; developed the aloha 'aina workforce program which placed 24 dislocated workers for 14 weeks of paid training at 15 sites in conservation and food systems; 50% of participants were offered jobs in their new field by program end; launched the moloa'a 'aina center food hub project in partnership with the moloa'a irrigation cooperative, Kauai's largest concentration of commercial farms (currently in early construction phase. Increasing food access - focusing on those most in need, by responding to both immediate needs and strategizing for long-term sustainable efforts to provide local food access: village harvest gleaning collected 12,000+ lbs of fresh produce and donated it to >12 food banks, pantries, and school programs with support from >150 volunteer hours; distributed 600 food trees and over 1,000 plant materials to the community for them to grow their own food; coordinated a quarterly Kauai food access meeting with cornerstone organizations serving Kauai's high-risk populations including food banks/pantries, elderly services agencies, snap outreach centers, and others; distributed 22,481+ free csas/grocery boxes in 2020, feeding 53,444 individuals through a variety of constantly-pivoting program models to meet the community's evolving anti-hunger needs during covid.