Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 28th, 2013

Wai'anae, Hawaii During summer vacation, Leina Panui is truly living in the present, taking care of family members, hanging with friends and going out to restaurants, with the approaching school year just a dream away. Although the upcoming freshman is hardly the quiet type, the idea of school has made her “nervous,” especially since she may be going to a new one.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Kamehameha,” Leina said.

Two hundred and forty high school students applied to the Oahu campus of Kamehameha this year, a private school for Native Hawaiian students. Sitting on a 600-acre hillside, it hosts less than 4,000 students from K-12. On the Leeward coast, only 13 boys and 13 girls were accepted, including Leina. Though she received the boarding pass to attend, there is a major roadblock to her destination. The average tuition for Kamehameha is $17,000.

“It may be one of the cheapest private schools, but with my two older siblings in college it’s kind of hard on my parents,” Leina said.

To help Native Hawaiian students afford attending Kamehameha, the school evaluates the family’s financial situation, and determines how much financial aid they could receive. Students may receive tuition support that covers partial costs up to full coverage of financial need.

“I told her that she was only going to go if she got the financial aid,” Ka`ai Panui, her mother, said.

Most financial aid recipients received their news by early May or late June. However, come July, Leina and her family were still waiting, thus putting even more distance between Leina and her goal.

“If nothing happens I would have to go to Wai’anae. It’s not a bad school but I’ve wanted to go to Kamehameha since elementary,” Leina said.

Then finally, on July 15, Leina found her future, written in the form of a letter.

“We were really lucky to get the financial aid that covers the whole thing,” her mother said, “I told her I was going to take a second job just to get her there, but overall we are really grateful.”

Excitement and possibility are in the air for Leina, since her expensive dreams have finally become a priceless reality - See more at: http://kaleoowaianae.weebly.com/priceless-reality.html#sthash.Id3W7tN5.dpuf

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 28th, 2013

Sweaty, smiling and ready for business, this is how Mark Suiso picks his mangoes. Suiso’s formal title is a banker, but he is a farmer at heart.

“I have a day job, I work at a bank, but by night and by passion I have my mango tree,” Suiso said.

Suiso owns the Makaha Mango farm, which is one of the last remaining local farms in Wai’anae. The farm was passed down from his grandfather, to his father, and not to him. To be sustainable, means to consume less than needed and conserve intake of food and maintain steady produce. “I hear a lot of people talking about sustainability, but I see rarely very few people doing anything constructively about it,” Suiso said.

In Hawaii, a majority of groceries are imported from the mainland. In 2008 it cost Hawaii $6,349 to ship imported foods. Hawaii ranks 42nd nationally for total agricultural sales within the United States. As recent as forty years ago sustainability was simply a way of life in Hawaii. “There were dairies up Waianae valley road, you know they had local farms,” Waianae Store owner Kris Okimoto said.

With the growth of the population and big business, demand for imported goods took up more shelves in the store, pushing out locally grown food. Locals are concerned about food being shipped from the mainland and how it effects local crops and business. “I do think it’s taking away from the economy in Hawaii, I believe that they should buy locally and support our local farmers,” said Hawaii resident Katherine Ikehara.

Imported goods are fueling Hawaii’s shift to unsustainable options as the state depends more on imports than home grown development. “For Hawaii to be sustainable we just don’t have enough farmland. We don’t have enough people to work the farms,” said Okimoto.

Sustainability comes at a cost. “I think there was a pricing worn milk, where legislation got involved and they said basically, they told the farmers, you know you can only sell milk for this price,” said Okimoto.

Which cripples Hawaii’s farming. With sustainability Hawaii residents will go from the grocery store to their yards, making it a much greener state. “Picking groceries from your yard instead of groceries from the store. That gives you a strong feeling that you are gonna be independent,” said Mark.

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 28th, 2013 - Wai'anae, Hawaii

The Marine Science Learning center at Waianae High School is in the business of growing things.

“My role is to develop young men and women, and I use the Marine Science program to help develop socially conscious young men and women,” Marine Science Program Coordinator, Dana Hoppe said.

The Marine Science program teaches its students about aquaculture and the importance of sustainability, along with other important life skills like teamwork and cooperation. “Basically the whole thing about this thing is teamwork, as a family, you know, you learn, you love each other,” senior Daishalynn Santiago said.

Anyone who has been through the program can tell you that they left feeling more like family, however this family has been facing rough waters due to recent budget cuts in the Department of Education. “When I first started, it wasn’t uncommon for us to have a budget of 60 to 80 thousand dollars a year, my budget last year was cut to about 16,500,” Hoppe said.

The Marine Science program was not the only one affected, in the 2012 fiscal year the legislature gave the DOE nearly 16 million dollars less than they did the year before. Despite troubling times, they are trying to bring some life back into the program by fundraising at the Waianae Farmers market. “I am very fortunate in that I have some former students who are very supportive and we’ve been working on ways to try to increase our revenue,” Hoppe said.

An increase in revenue isn’t the only thing on the agenda as far as keeping the program running. As Mrs. Hoppe nears retirement age, she is preparing her daughter Katie to take her place. “It’s somewhere that I’ve spent a lot of time growing up so, being able to teach there is kind of just continuing the cycle and it makes the most sense like why would I teach anywhere else,” Katie Hoppe said.

For the Hoppe’s it’s all about keeping the program and traditions go- ing, and if anyone can do it, they can. After all, it does run in the family.