February 22, 2017 (Hawaii Tribune-Herald)—Even the smallest garden bed requires an abundance of nurturing, and school gardens are no exception. A dozen educators from around the island met with the state’s farm-to-school coordinator Saturday for an overview of the program’s current initiatives and best practices for helping gardens thrive.
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February 10, 2017 (West Hawaii Today)—When it rains, gardens get much needed nourishment, but runoff from impervious surfaces sends pollutants such as heavy metals and oil into waterways and eventually into the ocean. Rain gardens are a way to prevent this from happening.
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January 23, 2017 (kidsgardening.org)—By supporting more than 60 school learning gardens on Hawai‘i Island through technical assistance and professional development programs, HISGN connects Hawai‘i’s keiki (children) to fresh food, healthier eating habits, and the ‘āina (land) itself. The Kohala Center also administers FoodCorps Hawai‘i and the statewide Hawai‘i Farm to School and School Garden Hui. These three initiatives support garden and nutrition programs and help schools procure fresh, healthy, locally grown food.
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December 23, 2016 (West Hawaii Today)—The Lieutenant Governor’s pilot project for the Farm to School Initiative is well underway in the Hawaii State Department of Education’s (HIDOE) Kohala Complex. Chef Greg Christian, president and founder of Beyond Green Sustainable Food Partners, has been selected to work with Cafeteria Manager Priscilla Galan and her staff to bring local, fresh scratch-cooked food to students.
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October 4, 2016 (UC Food Observer)—Clare Gupta is a recent addition to the University of California academic ranks. She works as an assistant public policy specialist for the University of California. UC specialists like Clare hold dual appointments with a campus (in her case, UC Davis, where she’s on the faculty in the Department of Human Ecology) and UC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division Cooperative Extension Service.
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September 16, 2016 (West Hawaii Today)—The Kohala Center’s weeklong Ke Kumu Aina program, held during fall intersession, offers middle school students opportunities to learn about the Big Island’s native plants. From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 10-13, participants will engage in scientific field research, learn to identify native plants and understand the environments in which they grow at Kohala Watershed.
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September 6, 2016 (West Hawaii Today)—How to increase food security and support local food production in Hawaii is a topic that’s on nearly everyone’s plate these days. In a state that can grow 365 days a year with favorable weather, water and soil, Hawaii grows only about 10 percent of what its residents and visitors eat. And an estimated 85 percent of all the food available in Hawaii’s supermarkets and restaurants at any given time is imported from 2,300 miles away or more.
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June 17, 2016 (Big Island Now)—The Kohala Center’s FoodCorps Hawai‘i program received a $28,000 Walmart Foundation grant to address childhood obesity and food insecurity at 12 schools on Hawai‘i Island and O‘ahu.
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May 23, 2016 (Hawaii Tribune Herald)—Gardens are a rich resource for classrooms, giving kids hands-on experience with the concepts they learn about in school. But in East Hawaii, school gardens are like any backyard garden: they’re a place where slugs and snails make their homes, and where there are snails and slugs, there’s a potential for rat lungworm disease.
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May 2, 2016 (Honolulu Star-Advertiser)—Darren Strand, president of Maui Gold Pineapple Co., sells fresh and frozen pineapple to customers as far away as Japan, but getting Hawaii’s emblematic fruit into local public school cafeterias is a tougher order.
“It’s really frustrating to see how much pineapple they eat in the schools and none of it’s from Hawaii,” said Strand, whose company has 1,000 acres in cultivation. “So we’d like to fix that.”
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