Categorized | Education

Kaiser volunteers help out school gardens

Kaiser Permanente’s community service day at the Kahakai Elementary School garden. (Photo courtesy of The Kohala Center)

MEDIA RELEASE

On Jan. 18, in honor of Martin Luther King (MLK), Jr., and his commitment to community service, doctors and staff from Kaiser Permanente joined hands with students, teachers, and volunteers to work in three school gardens around Hawaii Island.

“This is our way of giving back to our community,” said Dr. Jeffrey Tolan, Family Practice Physician at Kaiser Permanente’s Waimea Clinic.

Kaiser doctors, staff, and families across the state participated in the MLK Day volunteer effort — weeding, pruning, and planting crops in school gardens.

Makakapu Ioane, a third grader at Ka Umeke Kaeo Public Charter School, planting ti in the school garden. (Photo courtesy of The Kohala Center)

“Kaiser’s health care professionals are seeing that the future will be changed through ‘education.’ They came out to share their manao on health through proper nutrition and exercise, and they came to support the work happening in our school gardens. The Kaiser doctors understand that school gardens are meaningful community education projects that are reconnecting our keiki (children) and youth with their food and helping to change nutritional and lifestyle choices for students and their families,” said Nancy Redfeather, director of the Hawaii Island School Garden Network.

About 150 volunteers turned out, including plenty of keiki, at Ka Umeke Kaeo Public Charter School in Hilo, where they planted ti, tended the school garden, and removed rubbish from the school grounds.

“So much work got done with smiles and laughter,” says Pua Mendonca, Garden Teacher at Ka Umeke, “and all ages worked together with lots of aloha.”

More than 50 volunteers of all ages pitched in at Kaiser Permanente’s community service day at the Kahakai Elementary School garden, and 35 volunteers turned out at Malaai: The Culinary Garden of Waimea Middle School.

Working together, volunteers helped school garden teachers to rake grass clippings to use as mulch, to tend garden beds, to lay new weed mat, to plant seedlings, and to harvest produce.

— Find out more:
www.kohalacenter.org

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