NUMILA — Kaua‘i Coffee Company attracted some 200 people to its visitor’s center during its open house this weekend. “We wanted to give back to the community,” said Darla Domingo, one of some 30 Kaua‘i Coffee employees recruited to participate
NUMILA — Kaua‘i Coffee Company attracted some 200 people to its visitor’s center during its open house this weekend.
“We wanted to give back to the community,” said Darla Domingo, one of some 30 Kaua‘i Coffee employees recruited to participate in something the company has “never done before.”
Coinciding with the county’s recent proposition to create a new landfill on 127 acres of the local company’s agricultural land, several attendees on Saturday sported their “Dump da Dump” buttons and many were willing to share their opinions on the matter.
Always looking forward to community activities, Ale Otlang, a retired employee of Kaua‘i Coffee who “worked those fields they want to convert,” said he still “doesn’t understand why they’re going to do that.”
“There are a lot of wastelands,” he said. “We already lost our sugar. We don’t want to lose coffee too.”
Kaua‘i Coffee employee Joseph Taboniar, who planted the business’ first crop, agreed.
“It will contaminate the coffee,” he said. Not only would it affect business in that respect, but the visitor center which attracts some 600 people a year would be “downwind” of the rubbish pile.
Some of the best crops are planted there, he said. “You cannot just pull them out and relocate them.”
His wife, artist Marionette who was demonstrating her painting skills Saturday, agreed.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said.
But it wasn’t all politics Saturday, as children played with farm animals in the petting zoo and families spent a sunny afternoon participating in activities like Coffee Relay for Life.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Domingo said.
Plans to make it a yearly tradition may also come to fruition, Taboniar said.
A subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin, Kaua‘i Coffee has been harvesting on more than 3,000 acres of land since 1987 as “an alternative to sugar cane cultivation,” according to one of the many displays for visitors and kama‘aina to peruse last weekend.
The 2008 crop is currently being harvested in three shifts, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, averaging around 60 acres per day. The 2007 harvest produced more than 13 million pounds of cherry last year.
For more information, visit www.kauaicoffee.com.
