KALAHEO — Money is a great motivator for kids, said Kalaheo School third grade teacher Clyde Hashimoto. “When they see money, they get interested,” Hashimoto said in an invitation to watch the Kalaheo School third grade students harvest vegetables. Three
KALAHEO — Money is a great motivator for kids, said Kalaheo School third grade teacher Clyde Hashimoto.
“When they see money, they get interested,” Hashimoto said in an invitation to watch the Kalaheo School third grade students harvest vegetables.
Three different classes of students scoured through a portion of the school’s garden that was made possible through an Aloha ‘Ike grant administered by the Kaua‘i Economic Development Board.
“It’s only 100 feet by 100 feet, approximately,” Hashimoto said. “This is our second year doing the garden, and using the funds from KEDB, we’ve added several improvements.”
Hashimoto said last year was the first year they embarked on the garden project, and corn served as the primary crop the first time around.
“But that didn’t work out that well,” Hashimoto said. “Especially when the cows broke into the field and ate a lot of the plants.”
This year, working with KEDB and Chef Mark Oyama of Mark’s Place, Hashimoto said the crops grown by the students would be purchased by Mark’s Place and the money from those purchases would be sent to a school in Kenya, Africa.
“The students have been communicating with the school since last year, and they are trying to establish a garden in Africa,” Hashimoto said. “Of course, they will be growing different kinds of crops since one of the major obstacles there is the lack of water. They need to drill a well so they can have water for their crops.”
Students rummaged through rows of miniature romaine lettuce and radishes, returning with handfuls and armfuls of produce.
“We have a garden at home, too,” one student said through her smile. “But we don’t grow lettuce.”
Hashimoto said Friday’s harvest was the second one for the class with the produce being shared by the class and the ones for Mark’s Place to be delivered to the Lawa‘i restaurant.
“The whole idea behind the garden is to get the kids interested in wanting to grow things,” Hashimoto said. “You can’t have farms without people wanting to do the work.”
Oyama was excited about the venture, agreeing with Hashimoto that in order to get good locally-grown produce, people need to put in the time and effort.
Mia Ako of the KEDB said there is a proposal to have a photovoltaic irrigation system installed for next year’s garden at Kalaheo School.
“It’s nice to see that we can keep growing on a project,” Ako said. “Once the photovoltaic system is installed, math students can use it to track how much energy is being generated and how much energy the garden uses. It’s just very exciting.”
Ako said when the cows broke into the garden last year, it was heart-warming to see people like Wellington Fence donate fencing to help keep the cows out of the garden.
