Ka Hui Kalani – Nursery Build Event

Update: moved from 3/10 to 3/17

Saturday, March 17, 10am-sunset

With all of this less-than-epic weather we have been stuck with here on Oahu, I know that all of you pilots out there are looking for something to do. Well, I’ve got something great next weekend! Next Saturday, March 17, we are putting on a design/build event at Kalani High School from 10 am until sunset, with some construction, some gardening, some bamboo projects and certainly delicious food, good folks and good times.

Kalani High School has started a very interesting sustainability curriculum at their school, and we are staging the event this weekend to help progress their burgeoning program. This is the pilot program for the DOE sustainability initiative and anything deemed successful from their program could potentially be instituted in schools throughout the state. They started this program a little over a year ago and have already got organic gardens, aquaponics, and even egg-laying chickens. In fact, they sell some of their produce to Kokua market! They are creating a little agricultural oasis in an otherwise urban school district.

Three of us from the University of Hawai’i School of Architecture have been working with the stakeholders for this program to see how our design skills might help to progress their goals, and they expressed the need for a plant nursery. What we designed for them is a fairly simple outdoor temporary structure that will serve as a space for the kids to plant seeds and store keiki plants while they mature enough to be transplanted into garden beds.

Next weekend we will build this nursery (with your friend and fellow pilot Gaza leading the construction) as well as create new garden beds, weed, beautify and generally have a good time. There will be a couple of demonstrations on constructing a container garden and creating biochar. The food will be catered from Sweet Home Waimanalo (mmm mmm good). There is even a rumor that the mayor might show up. So come out! Represent the Hawai’i Paragliding Association in a feel-good community volunteer effort. Bring work gloves and good shoes and have some fun with us!

Your fellow fly junkie,

Laurel Swan