Funded Kaulunani Projects
2022 Funded Projects
Organization: Pop Up Labs for Sustainability (PULS) Award amount: $6,700 Project Title: Building the Next Generation of Urban Foresters Category: Education & Outreach Location: Oʻahu Project Overview: The goal is to cultivate the next generation of urban foresters through education. PULS will bring our action-oriented unit, Become a Tree-Hugger, which merges STEAM/Sustainable learning, to 4 schools in the 2021-22 academic year. The result will be 200 urban forestry stewards and a suite of tools – a teaching manual & PULS-in-a-Box – to share with other island schools to scale up our impact. The overarching objectives are to increase awareness of urban trees and their benefits to the O’ahu community by focusing on student education. Our approach is to provide a rigorous unit where students return to the lab, on average, four times for integrated lessons on tree ecology, tree health, tree ecosystem services, and tree conservation. About: The mission of PULS is to bridge STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts+design, and mathematics) and sustainable learning to help youth discover their potential in the field while inspiring commitment to protect our Earth among the next generation. |
Organization: Kuaʻāina Ulu ʻAuamo (Kaʻōnohi Farms) Award amount: $7,500 Project Title: Native Restoration Category: Tree Planting Location: Aiea, Hawaiʻi Project Overview: Located in the moku of Ewa and the ahupua’a of Kalauao rests a 2 ½ acre kipuka amonst the sprawl of an urban jungle. Concrete neighbors include a major highway, acres of parking lot, and the second largest shopping mall in Hawai’i. These modern developments were built upon some of the most fertile and intensively cultivated lands on O’ahu. Hundreds of lo’i kalo (taro patches) and loko i’a (fishponds) once thrived here. Today, these lands would be unrecognizable to the people of old who first made this place home. The goal is to create opportunities for contributors to establish a connection to the place they live, create self worth, well-being and pride in aloha aina. East Ewa is densely developed with the rest of ewa moku rapidly catching up. With few spaces for community to access in the central side of `Oahu, this space and project is invaluable. About: KUA is an innovative, community-based initiative for protecting, restoring and caring for Hawaiʻi. Our unique native species, ecosystems and island way of life in Hawaiʻi are deeply interconnected, and are at the heart of what makes these islands “home.” |
Organization: Kaʻū High & Pāhala Elementary School Award amount: $4,570 Project Title: Kaʻū High School Agroforestry Project Category: Tree Planting Location: Pāhala, Hawaiʻi Project Overview: Kaʻū High & Pāhala Elementary Schoolʻs AgHui is seeking to plant edible fruit trees including cacao, ʻulu (breadfruit), ʻohiʻaʻai (mountain apple), jackfruit, lychee, moringa, soursop, starfruit, and abiu on our 3.62 acre school farm. Through creating a food forest, we hope to increase food security in Kaʻū and create a living, learning laboratory for our teachers, students, and community members. About: Kaʻū High & Pāhala Elementary School is a small, rural, K-12 school on Hawaiʻi Island. Beginning this year, we are launching our Academy for Agri-preneurship, which prepares students to be engaged community members who practice mālama ʻāina (conservation and sustainability) and contribute to the socio-economic resiliency of Kaʻū, Hawaiʻi, and the world. |
Organization: ʻOhu ʻOhu Koʻolau, Inc Award amount: $4,000 Project Title: Community Engagement and Volunteer Support at Ala Mahamoe Urban Forest Restoration Site Category: Education and Outreach Location: Moanalua, Oʻahu Project Overview: This project will support ongoing efforts to improve watershed health and recharge at the Ala Mahamoe community dryland forest restoration site in Moanalua. Education of the community and local students increase conservation knowledge, and hosted volunteer workdays allow for access to the urban-wildlands interface and will consist of planting native species, weeding, and watering. Staff and volunteers will work to establish a variety of native Hawaiian plants. Support staff will visit with participating classrooms or organizations to explain the project and the benefits of such work in watershed protection. Education topics will include a discussion of native vs. non-native species and the role native plants play in overall watershed health; and identification of rare and threatened plants as well as common native species at the site. Additional hands-on activities for students will include creating plant and positive messaging signage for the Ala Mahamoe Restoration site and creating native seed balls to disperse in the restoration zone. The clay and soil mix have native seeds incorporated to contain layers of a forest (ground cover, shrubs, and tree). The clay in the seed balls protects the seeds from the heat of the sun and is unaffected by wind and heavy rains. An outdoor classroom event will also be conducted where students can place their signs and seed balls within the restoration site as well as get a hands-on learning experience with planting native trees. These activities will all work in sync with one another to progress the restoration of this community resource. About: ‘Ohu ‘Ohu Ko‘olau, Inc. DBA: Koʻolau Watershed Foundation is the non-profit fiscal sponsor to the Ko‘olau Mountains Watershed Partnership (KMWP). ‘Ohu ‘Ohu Ko‘olau, Inc. works in collaboration with KMWP to foster landowner collaboration and perpetuate the water resources of O‘ahu by protecting and enhancing the forests of the Ko‘olau Mountains and its invaluable native ecosystems. |
Organization: Dynamic Community Solutions Award amount: $7,383 Project Title: Inaugural Farming Plot of the Puʻuhonua o Waiʻanae Ma Uka Farm Village Category: Tree Planting Location: Waeʻanae, Oʻahu Project Overview: Puʻuhonua o Waiʻanae Ma Uka (POWMU) Farm Village is a planned 20-acre farm and group living facility that will be the permanent home for up to 250 currently houseless residents of the Puʻuhonua o Waiʻanae (POW) community near Waiʻanae Boat Harbor. The proposed project is for tree plantings of niu, maiʻa, ʻulu, mīkana (papaya), and edible fig along the ma uka/northern perimeter of the farm village. This project inaugurates the Village’s agroforestry and farming activities and is intended to support residents’ food security, contributing to their overall nutrition, health and connection to culturally important trees and crops. About: POWMU is led by the nonprofit Dynamic Community Solutions, created by and for residents using a “community first” model, where relationships form the basis for healing, hope and housing transition. With more than 75% of residents identifying as Native Hawaiian, the Farm Village blends traditions of communal living with innovative approaches to affordable housing, services, and community. |
Organization: Better Block Hawaiʻi Award amount: $5,325 Project Title: Trees for Kalihi Category: Education and Outreach Location: Kalihi, Oʻahu Project Overview: “Trees for Kalihi” is a community-driven effort that will take place in the Kalihi neighborhood. With less than 20% of tree canopy, Kalihi has the lowest level of tree canopy on Oahu. Due in part to its lack of greenery, this area is also one of the hottest neighborhoods on island, with an afternoon heat index of over 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Through the installation of street trees and public seating, this project aims to increase the health and wellbeing for all who live in or visit the area by increasing exposure to trees and public artwork, and providing opportunities for social interaction. This project also supports equity and access goals by focusing its activities in an underserved neighborhood. Additionally, through community outreach, this project aims to raise awareness and interest for planting more trees in the Kalihi neighborhood. The highly visible tree planters and seating will be painted and branded “Trees For Kalihi”, along with matching social media accounts, to demonstrate demand for trees in this area. About: Better Block Hawaiʻi is a 501(c)3 non-profit Community Development Organization. By facilitating “light, quick, cheap” placemaking projects, we educate and equip communities to reshape public spaces to promote healthy and vibrant neighborhoods. Most recently, we worked with community partners in Kaimuki to install three “parklets” to support local businesses and create more usable public space. |
Organization: Hui o Hoʻohonua Award amount: $30,000 Project Title: Hui Alaloa – Creating New Pathways for Abundance in the ʻEwa Moku Category: Tree Planting (Level II) Location: ʻEwa Moku, Oʻahu Project Overview: Honoring traditional Hawaiian systems of resource management, this demonstration project brings together community partners in a single biocultural restoration project. This project seeks to create a demonstration agroforestry project based along a quarter mile stretch of the Pearl Harbor Historic Trail (Puʻuloa Alaloa) based on our project pillars: community activation (via community work days, education, school-based leadership opportunities and cultural mural project), placemaking (enhancing community identity and public spaces, decolonizing place names and integrating Hawaiian moʻolelo and manaʻo), equitable food security (establishing a place with access to food and culturally relevant plants for community use) and mobility (providing improved safety and public use of the Pearl Harbor Bike Path for walking, biking and related wellness activities, providing a sustainable transportation alternative for those commuting to jobs and schools in the area). About: Hui o Hoʻohonua (HOH808) is a 501 (c)3 non-profit created by members of the ʻEwa community. The primary mission is to end the perpetuation of historical trauma to the land, water, and people in the ʻEwa Moku on Oʻahu. The development of our mission was motivated by our observations of environmental neglect and pollution in Pearl Harbor (Puʻuloa), as well as the social needs of the people who live in the surrounding moku. |
2022 Arbor Day Hawaiʻi Funded Projects
2021 Funded Projects
Organization: Pop Up Labs for Sustainability (PULS) Award amount: $6,700 Project Title: Building the Next Generation of Tree Stewards Category: Education & Outreach Location: Oahu Project Overview: The goal is to build the next generation of Urban Tree Stewards. PULS will develop an action-oriented lesson plan, Become a Tree Hugger, which merges STEAM/sustainable learning, and brings it to four schools it is scheduled to visit in the 2020-21 academic year. Each participating school and student will “earn” trees to plant. The program will result in the cultivation of over 200 conservation-aware tree-planting stewards and over 240 trees planted. About: The mission of PULS is to bridge STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts+design, and mathematics) and sustainable learning to help youth discover their potential in the field while inspiring commitment to protect our Earth among the next generation. |
Award amount: $18,000 Project Title: Symphony of the Hawaii Forests Category: Education & Outreach Project Overview: The project is creating a curriculum and a new symphony consisting of music, animation, and hula, devoted to educating K-12 students of O‘ahu on the importance of trees through a multidisciplinary approach using both science and the arts. About: Led by Takoma Itoh, UH Manoa composer who led Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds, Symphony of the Hawaii Forests aims to educate and inspire students. |
Award amount: $31,500 Project Title: Raising Awareness of Albizia in Hawaii Category: Education & Outreach Project Overview: This project aims to increase awareness of one of Hawaii’s most threatening invasive species, albizia trees (Falcataria moluccana). We will target O’ahu, Hawaii’s most populated and urbanized island and will develop a sharable model that will not only empower local communities to take action and remove invasive albizia trees from their neighborhoods, but can also be shared and applied across the nation and in other areas to galvanize local initiatives and show that community-driven control projects are an effective way to manage invasive species in urban and community forests. About: Led by Koʻolau Mountain Watershed Partnership, this project is still in its early stages. |
2021 Arbor Day Hawaiʻi Funded Projects
Organization: Malama Learning Center Award amount: $5,000 Project Title: Celebrating Trees in the Urban Aina of West Oahu Category: Education & Outreach (Arbor Day Hawaii) Project Overview: This project invites West Oahu residents to plant trees in hands-on workshops, take home free trees, and shop at a pop-up store featuring tree-based products made by volunteers. The primary event led by Malama Learning Center will be held in Kunia and partner events will be held at two other sites in Waianae. A short companion video celebrating Arbor Day will be created and aired on television. About: Mālama Learning Center is a non-profit organization that brings art, science, conservation, and culture together to promote sustainable living throughout Hawai‘i. They are located in West O‘ahu, in the city of Kapolei, offering our services primarily to communities from Waipahu to Wai’anae. Mālama Learning Center is the result of a shared vision among educators, conservation groups, businesses, and community members to create an innovative learning center in Kapolei to promote healthy, sustainable living in an island environment. |
20 years of Kaulunani Accomplishments, 1993 – 2013