Homeless shelter plants edible garden

Honolulu Star Advertiser article, \”Garden thrives at homeless shelter\”

 Come join us on Saturday August 14, from 9 am- 1- pm for  another volunteer workday. 

We will be Planting flowers, veggies and other plants in our Garden
Building a guava branch fence for the garden
& making Herb Container gardens.
It coincides with IHS’ Founders Day and there wlll also be some work in the shelter also,
cleaning and painting, etc.
Please contact us at leafhawaii@gmail.com for further details.

On July 16 , LEAF participated in a volunteer workday with our partners at the IHS Urban Farm, (IHSUF), replanting the vertical herb garden. Gordon, Joser, Kavi, and David spent the previous day preparing the wall.  All the cells of the wall were taken down and cleaned up, all the old plants were transferred into new containers or composted. The following day IHS guest volunteers, staff and LEAF volunteers  spent a solid 5 hours replanting 1000 or so new plantings . The herb wall will be ready in the upcoming weeks to once again provide the IHS kitchen with  a fresh variety of healthy herbs in their recipes. Many thanks to everyone who came to lend a most helpful hand. God bless and see you again soon. Next volunteer workday is on August 14 at 9:00 am., which is IHS’ Founders Day. Contact David at 389-819 if you plan to volunteer.

Our IHSUF, IHS Urban Farm partnership held a volunteer workday on Friday, May 7. The volunteers did an amazing job uprooting weeds, shrubs, deeply rooted stumps, to clear the ground for a sheet mulch layering process of chicken manure, cardboard, compost and mulch. Military volunteers  from the Navy seals, LEAP instructors, IHS staff and keiki, along with LEAF Hawaii volunteers all came together under the hot sun to prepare the space for planting an edible garden at the shelter. The day long worday took about 5 hours, but with so many volunteers the task was a real pleasure for everyone who participated. All the volunteers are anxious fo the next workday which will be a planting day to help fulfill the IHSUF mission, ” planting seeds of self-sufficiency”  and “helpiing solve hunger one garden, one farm at a time”, with the help of the community.

 Garden now ready for planting! 

LEAF Project is partnered with our good friends at the Institute for Human Services Family and Women’s Kaaahi St. shelter to complete a rooftop garden and learning center for their guests. The idea was the inspiration of LEAF consultant, Jim Hollyer. When Connie Mitchell, Executive Director of IHS, was approached with the idea, she presented it to her Board of Directors, and won overwhelming support and approval to move forward with the rooftop vision. Now it is really taking shape, under the direct care of IHS Operations Manager, Gordon Ortiz, whose enthusiasm for the project knows no bounds. Both aquaponic and hydroponic growing systems will be working side by side in the food production cycle. The plan is to train adults from the homeless population residing at the shelter who are interested in future employment by creating similar rooftops all over the islands to provide healthy food systems everywhere the sun shines upon our beautiful state.  That is alot of jobs. Hunger and poverty can be a thing of the past with this innovative project. Contact us if you are interested in helping out in anyway.

LEAF at HPU Sustainability Fair

It was a joyful day getting the word out about LEAF’s work at Hawaii Pacific University’s first Sustainability Fair. Thanks to Isis, pictured here, for helping set this up. We met many interested students and passersby who signed up to be on our contact list. Some, also, signed up to be part of LEAF’s Aina Corps, volunteers who will participate in work days, involving planting seeds with us for growing food at our shelter pilot project, etc.  Thanks to the students and faculty at HPU for organizing this community outreach Sustainability awareness day.

Today LEAF Executive Director, Mr. Santistevan and farm manager, Kavi,  visited a beautiful 35 acre farm in Waimanalo.  Julius, landownner of this serene piece of paradise, gave us a tour, as we discussed the possibility of partnering with him to laulima a common vision for creating a healthy food system and educational outreach in that community. Waimanalo is certainly a great choice for creating a model sustainability model as it is so centrally located close to Honolulu. After meeting with Julius and discussing our vision together, we will be compiling a proposal  for project phase development and take it from there. We will keep you posted and let you know how this progresses.  We are hopeful this could be LEAF’s first rural farm project partner. Combined with our urban farm project at IHS, this will continue our goal of establishing both an urban and rural community food system.