On a warm Wednesday morning in Makaha, keiki sit on a lauhala mat chatting and enjoying snacks under the shade of chico and ulu trees at Hoa Aina O Makaha. Twice a week, the children and their ohana gather as part of an innovative collaboration with Partners in Development Foundation’s Ka Paalana Preschool, a no-cost parent participation traveling preschool – one of the many ways in which Hoa Aina O Makaha partners with other organizations to build the beloved community.
Before Hoa Aina got its name, it was known as Makaha Farms or Hale Mahiai (house of the farmer). But then Aunty Puanani Burgess, a Native Hawaiian activist, poet, and Zen Buddhist priest gifted the farm with its name: Hoa Aina O Makaha, translating to “land of Makaha shared in friendship.”
The quiet five-acre farm is nestled in Makaha’s residential neighborhood and next-door neighbors to Makaha Elementary School (MES), where an open gate welcomes students and teachers to walk around, explore, learn, take breaks, and decompress.
As we tour the farm, Anela Pau-Oshiro, case resolution specialist II at HMSA, Hoa Aina O Makaha volunteer, MES graduate, recalls when the fields were filled with leaves and bushes.
“When I was in school here, the farm didn’t exist at all,” says Pau-Oshiro, as Chelsey Jay, Hoa Aina’s executive director leads us on a tour.
She discovered the farm when her kids began attending MES. “Now it’s so nice – listening to the wind, the breeze, the birds, the animals. Some kids don’t get to experience this at all.”
A peaceful space
Framed by the Waianae mountains, the once barren landscape is now filled with an orchard bursting with produce – olive, cashew, and macadamia nut trees share the space along with fruit trees like jabong, jackfruit, soursop, Surinam cherries, and mango. Sugarcane, gandules, and cassava grow in abundance. Rows of planter boxes are stuffed with vegetables like daikon and kale, and herbs like mint and cilantro. A kitchen and solar pizza oven were built on-site to experiment with ingredients from the farm.
But more than just a farm and the weekly preschool site, Hoa Aina O Makaha is a place of peace, with a mission of creating peaceful communities in harmony with nature through the eyes, hands, and hearts of the children.
Reminders to perpetuate harmony dot the farm with signs of “peace” written in various languages. In 1986, the World Peace Prayer Society from Japan donated a peace pole bearing the words, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.” There’s a bodhi tree like the one Buddha sat under for 49 days to be enlightened.
“Our mission isn’t really about growing food,” says Chelsey Jay, as we sit on a bench to chat. Jay was tapped as Hoa Aina O Makaha’s executive director after beloved founders and leaders of this organization for over 40 years Gigi and Judy Cocquio retired two years ago. “That’s just how we choose to fulfill our mission. Our mission is really about cultivating a space of peace and joy and happiness.”
The sense of joy is evident in its small staff of mostly Waianae-born residents, who operate the nonprofit and work closely like a family. Some worked on the farm as former MES students and returned as adults to continue their love of farming and working with keiki. “People are committed to this place because we love it so much,” says Jay.
Growing together
When Cocquio (better known as Uncle Gigi or Mr. Gigi), a priest from Italy, found his way to Makaha after serving in the Philippines, the farmland was originally owned by the Catholic Diocese in Waianae. Uncle Gigi moved in with no real plan. He instead listened to the needs of the community, and by doing so, the programs on the farm and its ethos grew organically, with its roots deeply tied to the people in the community.
“Uncle Gigi is so amazing,” says Jay. “His philosophy is to just sit with people, be with people, listen to people. They said, ‘Uncle Gigi, we want to grow food.’ So, he started growing food. ‘Uncle Gigi, we want to build an animal area so we can learn how to take care of animals. Uncle Gigi, we want to build a workshop so we can learn how to build things.’ So, he did. Everything here at Hoa Aina was built with people in mind.”
Jay emphasizes that the semantics matters. “It's not for people. It is with people,” she says. “And that is the essence of Hoa Aina – you meet people where they're at. You do things together, you grow together, and you learn together.”
One of Hoa Aina’s earliest partnerships was with Kaala Farm to create a substance abuse and rehabilitation program for youth from Waianae High School and Nanakuli High School called the Waianae Rap Center. Youth learned to plant seeds and see their hard work grow.
Na Keiki O Ka Aina – Children of the Land
As neighbors to MES, one of Hoa Aina’s core programs, Na Keiki O Ka Aina, was started in 1987 to support the MES students to learn traditional Native Hawaiian values of caring for the land. The curriculum encourages hands-on, play-based learning as keiki grow food, work in the farm, or build projects in a classroom without walls.
“It’s not so much about the content,” says Jay. “We meet content areas and standards, but it’s about fostering wonder and curiosity. It’s more, how do we make sure we’re fostering good human beings? I would say make sure people feel loved while on the farm. If you feel loved and secure and safe here, and you feel happy, then the learning will come.”
Ke Ala – The Way
To expand beyond MES, The Ke Ala Learning Center was established in 1996 to open the Na Keiki O Ka Aina program to other schools and groups, both private and public across Oahu. The curriculum highlights topics like nutrition, health, animal care, mahiai (farming) practices, as well as the cultural history of the islands. Each year, the program supports over 2,000 students.
U-Pick – Farm to Basket Experience
During the COVID-19 pandemic, as growing your own food became a popular activity, Hoa Aina focused its energy on food production since groups couldn’t come the farm. One year, the farm produced 400 pounds of produce to assist with Waianae Coast Comprehensive Center’s (WCCHC) Keiki Pantry program.
When emergency distribution ended, Hoa Aina continued growing food and transitioned to a U-Pick Farm to Basket Experience. Today, U-Pick events remain an integral part of Hoa Aina’s core programming to engage and connect with community on the farm.
From August through April, U-Pick events typically occur on the last Saturday of the month from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Anyone can harvest and pick from the designated fields and take home pre-picked fruit or products like sugar cane juice or ‘ulu chips. Guests are also invited to assist farmers with planting, washing and weighing harvest, learning health benefits of items picked, share recipes, and take clippings home to replant in their personal gardens.
The event is free and open to anyone to attend with the goal to increase access to nutrient-dense foods, share the abundance of this aina, and deepen our pilina to aina and each other.
“You can give a donation if you want to, but you don’t have to. We only ask that you take what you need and give what you can – and that can mean many different things,” says Jay. “There’s a lot of equity in not charging everyone a specific amount. Equality is sameness, but equity is about fairness. Or you could give time and energy and help plant for the next harvest. It’s based on what your heart can give and your personal situation.”
As an extension of the U-Pick program’s success, Hoa Aina started a Kupuna U-Pick pilot project in January 2024, for community members ages 55 and older, partnering with students from the Papahana o Kainoa (POK) Alternative Learning Program.
Run by ninth and 10th graders from POK once a month from January to April, the students oversee everything, from preparing the farm for harvesting, creating value-added products to give away to the kupuna, and preparing dishes using ingredients from the farm on Kupuna U-Pick days.
“It’s [Kupuna U-Pick] such a beautiful display of what the students learn on the farm,” says Jay. “They see their hard work in action, like, ‘Okay, now I know why you’re asking me to pull weeds, mulch, and plant in the hot Makaha sun.’ There are tangible results. The Kupuna U-Pick supports the learning and growth of our Waianae youth while caring for the beloved kupuna from our community. All of these generations are coming together on the farm sharing aloha, conversations, and food. The U-Pick is ultimately about connection."
Partner programs
In 2017, after the WCCHC purchased the land from the Catholic Church, Hoa Aina frequently partnered with them (along with many other programs and nonprofits) to help reduce health disparities.
In addition to volunteering at U-Pick events, Pau-Oshiro also enjoys working with the Kupuna Pantry. With its Food as Medicine program, WCCHC health providers write food prescriptions so kupuna can use EBT or SNAP benefits at farmer’s markets. Hoa Aina currently serves as a Kupuna Pantry distribution site, which is run by Elepaio Social Services of WCCHC.
Pau-Oshiro remembers volunteering alongside HMSA during a Kupuna Pantry event, when a houseless woman recognized her and was happy to see a familiar face from the Makaha community. As Pau-Oshiro explained how the program worked and helped her register, the woman shared her struggles as she waited for her food. Later, Pau-Oshiro ran into her at a store in Makaha, the woman shared she was still happy to have her food prescription.
“I also do it for my kids,” Pau-Oshiro says of volunteering at the farm, getting her hands dirty in the soil during U-Pick events. “It’s good life lessons to know how to grow, how to cook, how to sustain themselves,” says Pau-Oshiro. “It makes me feel good to be a part of this. It’s close to home. It’s good to see people in the community, regardless of what their situation is.”
What’s next
As the preschool wraps up, keiki and their families find their way to the animal area, home to a pig, geese, turtles, rabbits, schools of sunfish, and a beehive. Children chatter as they feed a hungry pig and say hi to the rabbits.
“This is what I love about our farm – it’s good for young keiki,” says Jay, as the kids visit with the animals. “We’re in this crucial part of the educational auwai (pipeline). We reach the keiki and expose them to the aina at a very young age. We reach keiki in their formative years, and because they’re so young, they often come with their parents, then families are learning together. That ohana connectedness is really important.”
Hoa Aina continues to grow and evolve, honoring the past, nurturing the present, and looking towards the future finding innovative ways to collaborate with partners to uplift and support the community.
Jay looks forward to seeing the space continue as a place of peace and healing. “What’s the deeper essence of what we’re doing? We’re really creating space for our community to grow. We’re creating abundance for our community. We’re feeding people not just through food,” Jay says. “How do we feed your soul by being on a farm, by being on aina, by being with your family? How do we plant seeds of hope? This is my interpretation of what we do at Hoa Aina O Makaha – it is a kipuka, this safe space for our community to gather and to be together and to grow together.”
For more information, please visit Hoa Aina O Makaha’s website. During the summer, U-Pick events pause to allow the fields to rest and replenish. Please check Hoa Aina O Makaha’s Instagram, Facebook, or website events calendar for the most up-to-date information.
More green spaces
Studies have shown that being in green space provides many health benefits. Read more stories that help the environment and our community:
