|  | Aloha Kākou!Our second quarterly newsletter is here! Mahalo for signing up with us if you’re a new subscriber and welcome back to the rest of our extended ‘ohana! We are very grateful to have you all here and to be able to share with you the work we are doing for our amazing north shore community. If you ended up on this list accidentally, e kala mai, feel free to use the link at the bottom of the email to unsubscribe. |  | No more Hanalei convoy!Finally, six months after the March Hanalei hill landslide, the road from Princeville to Hanalei has opened again! We’re very, very happy about this new development and extremely grateful to the Department of Transportation for working day and night to make this happen. The north shore was severely impacted by the road closure. Now finally, thanks to the invaluable effort of dedicated workers, things can slowly start to go back to normal. We want to give a big mahalo to the staff of our Keiki Afterschool Enrichment Program who stepped up during the road closure to wait long hours in the convoy and stay late so that we could support families that weren’t able to pick up their keiki. Speaking of which… | |  | Happy Birthday to our Keiki Afterschool Enrichment Program!This month is a special one, because we are celebrating the first year anniversary of our Keiki Afterschool Enrichment Program (KAEP)! We launched this new program in October 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to support keiki struggling with less in-person learning and parents who face difficulties in balancing their jobs and extra childcare demands during the pandemic. And… It was a success! Following the DOE calendar, KAEP provides north shore keiki with academic tutoring, environmental learning & recreation and arts & cultural activities after school. For this reason we give special priority to low-income families and keiki struggling academically and we provide scholarships for those families who need extra support. During this quarter 31 keiki enrolled. Thanks to the support of the G.N. Wilcox Trust, the McInerny Foundation, the First Hawaiian Bank Foundation, and Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg through the Chan Zuckerberg Kauai Community Fund of Hawaii Community Foundation we were able to award 15 full scholarships and 4 half scholarships to help families! | We recently started partnering with our Farmers’ Market vendors to provide snacks for the KAEP. This partnership gives keiki access to fresh local food and teaches them about where their food comes from and how to prepare easy healthy snacks. It also helps relieve pressure on parents to provide snacks and serves as a backup in case snacks were forgotten. We also partnered with the Kaua’i Food Bank’s Keiki Cafe Program. We are always looking for new partnerships so, if you know anyone who may be interested in supporting our keiki program, please let us know! |
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| | This quarter we also started using HiMama, one of the best rated childcare apps in the US! Thanks to this new system, our administrative processes for the program are completely streamlined. Through the app we are also able to securely and safely share detailed updates with pictures and videos to every parent so that families can be engaged in what their keiki are learning! |
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| Our Keiki Afterschool Enrichment Program (KAEP) first quarter ended on October 8th. We are just finishing our Fall Break Camp. The next quarter will begin on October 18th. Please donate to help us continue to provide services for our north shore keiki! | | |  | The Farmers’ MarketLots of news from our Farmers’ Market as well! After consulting our vendors we have decided to keep the market on Sundays, from 12 to 2:30pm for a little while longer. Hanalei Farmers’ Market will remain on Sundays from 12pm to 2:30pm until further notice! Also, as a reminder, we're accepting SNAP/EBT benefits at the market, so help us spread the word! We are very excited to announce a new special offering - Yoga at the Farmers’ Market led by Mary Susan Stults! From 12:15pm-1:30pm every Sunday, Mary is offering outdoor yoga for all levels. Her goal is to make yoga accessible to everyone, so she is offering these classes by donation. So come on out and enjoy some yoga in the sunshine with your friends! Our fundraiser booth is carrying some new market swag. Come by and check out our new tank tops! Now you can also order our market swag via the Farmers’ Market Instagram page. Follow us for important announcements about the market, yoga and other new upcoming market events! This past year has been a difficult time for everyone. Keeping the market alive through all the challenges we have faced with the pandemic and the landslide has been a huge success! Our farmers market is a great example of fortitude. Although we have a small team, we are hard working and have overcome many obstacles. Donate to support our team in maintaining this historic market! | | |  | Vendor Spotlight Yoshii FarmsIf you have ever visited our market you were surely greeted by Aunty Linda. She is a ray of sunshine, as vibrant as her delicious produce from her family farm, Yoshii Farms. Linda has been at the Hanalei Farmers Market since the very first market in the early 90s! She even helped start the original farmers market on Kaua’i in the 70s, called the Sunshine Farmers Market. Linda is from the Philippines, where her parents taught her to cultivate produce and patience while doing so! She moved here in 1970 after meeting Dickie, her husband, who is from Kaua’i. At that time, her inlaws were growing produce and that further inspired her and Dickie to start their own farm. They were able to secure property in Moloa in the early ‘80s, and this is where Yoshii Farms is located. 40 years later, Yoshii Farms is a family owned and run business: Linda's son, daughter in law, grandson, daughter, and sister in law help her and Dickie manage and run the farm. Together they grow an abundance of tropical fruits. When Aunty Linda talks about the Yoshii Farms, you can really see how passionate she is about what she does. She says her special technique is a lot of love, water, and sunshine. She wants everyone to enjoy her produce, and they do! For specific inquiries you can reach out to Yoshii Farms at 808-652-5069. |
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| |  | Facility RentalsOur facilities are open and available for community use! We have hosted different community groups and events such as; Alcoholics Anonymous, Halau O Hanalei, Veterans groups, home school groups and various classes. Hale Halawai is a great, affordable space for the north shore community to gather. If you are a family looking to host a private event or you are an entrepreneur looking to offer classes or workshops or you are a community group that needs a meeting space, we’ve got you covered! Our greatest wish is that our community has access to wonderful, unique offerings and we would be honored to house them. Book a space with us today! We are currently in the middle of a capital campaign to raise money to renovate our buildings in order to make them ADA accessible and cover necessary repairs. We are grateful to the Atherton Family Foundation for their generous donation to this campaign. Donate to help us reach our goal in renovating our buildings so our community has a safe place to gather, learn and celebrate together! | | |  | COVID-19 ResponseDue to rampant spread of the new Delta variant, we have unfortunately needed to close the KAEP in order to ensure the safety of the children and staff. We have implemented new Covid-19 procedures, grouping students together by their school and family to limit spread, implementing daily temperature and health checks, continued wearing of masks and as much social distancing as possible. We also implemented an internal vaccination policy, requiring staff to be vaccinated or submit a medical or religious exemption and undergo testing once a week. | | New Press PageTo help people appreciate the history of our community center since its foundation almost 30 years ago, we put up a Press page on our website, displaying articles, videos and books that mention or explore further the legacy of Hale Halawai ‘Ohana O Hanalei. Enjoy! |
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| | Shop for the holidays with Hale Halawai! |  | Online StoreOur online store is open once again! Get a meaningful gift for yourself or a loved one that supports a good cause. We ship anywhere within the US. Check out our two newest pieces of clothing: the Tank Mountain Top and the Keiki Fundraiser Shirt! We will be constantly updating the shop so keep checking back for new items. |
|  | Amazon SmileDo you shop on Amazon? If you do, consider using Amazon Smile! It's exactly the same, the only difference is that everytime you shop on Amazon Smile, Amazon donates to whatever charity you choose. You don't have to pay anything extra! Isn't that amazing?! If you like the idea, you can set Hale Halawai as your favorite charity by following the link below. |
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| The TeamThanks to the Rise to Work program, this year we were able to have three temporary employees for six months: Breanne Brauer and Mary Susan Stults as KAEP assistants and Racquel Jaclyn Segato-Figueroa as our Grant Writer. This quarter, thanks to all the support we received from various grants and donors, we were able to permanently hire Breanne and Racquel! Welcome to the Hale Halawai ‘Ohana O Hanalei family. We are extremely proud of our team and all the success that we have been able to achieve together. We look forward to growing our team so that we can provide even more services to our community! | | Mahalo for your support!See you in January for our next newsletter issue. | | | | |
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