Aloha nō!! 

Mahalo for joining us at our 2nd Annual Nā Leo o Papakōlea Wild Lands Clean Up this past Saturday. What a way to celebrate Kapua and Aunty Hanakia. We are truly grateful to each and every one of you for coming to lend your time, talents, and resources to making our homesteads a safer place to live. Over 30 volunteers made us a mighty team!

We’re happy to report that we filled all three bins and successfully create a path up to the easement!! We’ll know how much exactly we removed next week and will make sure to report out those numbers at our NLOP Meeting and in our media spaces as they are such great celebration counts. 

Special mahalo to: 

• Department of Hawaiian Homelands for securing the bins. 

• 808 Clean Up for lending us tools and equipment. 

• Uncle Harold Ayat for renting the chipper for the community to use. 

• Ikaika Freitas of 'Āina Living Hawai'i for lending expert tree cutting skill.

• 'Ohana Keahi for their work at the Ulu Niu and inviting the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle Hawai'i team to join.

• Kula No Nā Po'e Hawai'i for printing all the things and rallying the community to help.

• Aunty Sweetie and Uncle Paul Suyat of ʻIlima Catering for the ono food!

• Zoe of Trees Water & People for supporting the meaʻai cost.

• Aunty Puni for the coffee and morning goodies.

• Every homesteady be ready truck driver who helped us transport all the things. 

• Hawai'i Wildfire Management Organization for providing us with our Wildfire Regional. Plan and supporting our work.

• Lincoln Elementary School for hosting our pre and post clean up gathering.

• 'Ohana Kema for always taking care of the mauna park.

Here's to continuing to do the work of managing our wildfire ignitions, owning our zones, building pilina with one another through shared commitment to stewarding our 'āina ho'opulapula. 

Mahalo nui for joining us for our ‘Āina Stewardship and Cut Back Crew community clean up on Sunday, May 2nd as part of Wildfire Awareness Month. With funds from Hawai'i Wildfire Management Organization, we were able to held create non-combustible zones around neighbors' homes, primarily focused on supporting kūpuna homes!

Some exciting shares:

• 30 volunteers contributing over 150 hours of time during the clean up and throughout the week prior and following, for an estimated total value based on the national volunteer rate of almost $5,000;

• Two homes in Kewalo, three homes in Papakōlea, communal walk way in Papakōlea, and Stevenson Middle School garden;

• 42 Cubic Yards of fuels removed; and 

• A chip truck is helpful for taking chipping power right to areas that need help plus haul quality chip materials to support school gardens!!

We're very proud of this work day and you can check out our recap on instagram @homesteadfirewise. 

Special mahalo to Affordable Tree Trimming and Arborist, Kāhewai Media, Blad from DHHL, 808 Clean Up, Stevenson Middle School, and our fiscal sponsor Kula No Nā Po'e Hawai'i.

Mahalo nui for joining us for our ‘Āina Stewardship and Cut Back Crew community clean up on Sunday, May 25th as part of Wildfire Awareness Month. With funds from Hawai'i Wildfire Management Organization, we were able to held create non-combustible zones around neighbors' homes, primarily focused on supporting kūpuna homes!

Some exciting shares:

• 30 volunteers contributing over 150 hours of time during the clean up and throughout the week prior and following, for an estimated total value based on the national volunteer rate of almost $5,000;

• Two homes in Kewalo, two homes in Kalāwahine, and five-ish homes in Papakōlea received support from our crew addressing their home ignition zones;

• Three 20ft roll off bins were filled exclusively with home ignition zone waste while they were in community for a week! The one on Moreira was completely full of chipped materials; and 

• Chippers are amazing!!

Since completing this event, neighbors who received support were extremely grateful and have even recommended us to other neighbors in community, encouraging us to set up shop and keep it up! Check out our recap on instagram @homesteadfirewise. 

Although we don't yet have another clean up scheduled YET, we do know DHHL will be doing some tree trimming along the kahawai (stream) and may be pursuing using goat/sheep grazing to address ignitions in some of the open lots from the company that made this project in the Waialae'iki Community possible. 

Special mahalo to the Jr. Leaders After of Kula, HTM, Homedepot Rental Department,  Lanakila Catering, all of our truck drivers who helped transport cut materials, all of our chain saw operators for the big cuts and all of our small kind action sickle peeps, and our trusted fiscal sponsor Kula No Nā Po'e Hawai'i.