 to Connecting Hawai'i Business on ThinkTechHawaii. My name is Kathleen Lee, owner of Kathleen Lee Consulting, and I am your host for this program. ThinkTechHawaii is currently live streamed on ThinkTechHawaii.com as well as on ThinkTechHawaii's Facebook and YouTube channel. And for viewers out there watching us, you may ask us questions during the show by emailing them to questions at ThinkTechHawaii.com. I'm excited for today since we are now in the first day of the last month of 2021 and we're in the holiday season, which is also a season of giving and giving back. Our guest on the show is a senior from Hawai'i Preparatory Academy on Hawai'i Island who is doing just that, giving back to the community through her capstone project. Please welcome Olivia Rose. Hey, Olivia. Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here. Thank you for being on the show and for everything that you're doing for the community. But before we get into that, could you introduce yourself to our viewers out there? Yes, so as you mentioned, I'm a senior at HPA and I'm originally from the Bay Area, but I moved to the Big Island in 2017 when I started eighth grade at HPA. And I was actually originally only planning on staying here for one year, but my family and I loved it so much that we decided to stay through high school and now this is home and I don't think my family will ever leave. We love it here. And my brother, he was actually a senior at HPA as well when we moved. So I was in eighth grade and he was a senior and I kind of got to see what the high school was like and I couldn't wait to get started. As you can see, that was my baking blog. I've loved cooking and baking ever since I was little and I learned from my mom and grandma. And then as my passion developed, I taught myself even more through YouTube tutorials and cooking shows. And being in the kitchen is really just my creative outlet because I get to do whatever I want and it's okay to fail, but when something turns out great, I love sharing it with others and making them happy. And in order to share my creations with others, I did make that baking blog to show my favorite recipes and tips and tricks as well as an Instagram and TikTok to go along with it, which has been a lot of fun. And I just think food is so amazing because you can speak to people with food in a way that you can't with words and that's what makes it so special and that's what inspired me to do my Capstone project. I love that. I love that you are integrating your passion for food, making it and sharing it with giving back. So let's talk about that further. Olivia, what is a Capstone project for viewers out there who may have been out of high school for a while? Yeah, so a Capstone project is basically an interdisciplinary project that culminates, at least the HPA culminates our high school experience that sort of brings together everything we've learned throughout these four years in high school into a project where we get to channel our passion and do something that we are truly inspired and passionate about. And so my project is just that, like you said, my passion for food and it's called nutritious and delicious helping one kid at a time. Wonderful, let's pull up the first video. So people have an idea of where your project is currently. Hi, I'm Olivia Rose and I'm doing my senior Capstone project and I'm distributing meal kits to low income families in Waimea. And I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped with this first distribution including Carabara Farms right here in Waimea for donating lettuce and Maui Nui-Venison for donating a pound of venison to each family which is absolutely amazing. And I really appreciate it and couldn't have done it without them. If you would like to be a part of this project and show your heart for this community I would appreciate any type of donations any food, fresh produce, any canned goods, dry goods anything that you can. You can do any donations through conacids.org and help out this community. Thank you. Looks like a fun project. So tell us more about it your partnership with Kona Kids and how you're working with local businesses and to give back to the community. Yeah, so I partnered with Kona Kids the founder, Coach McCoy. She's been a really amazing mentor throughout this journey. And Kona Kids is a really great organization that is trying to help the less fortunate children on this island by educating them and teaching them to become leaders of their generation. So she works with multiple neighborhoods on the island and I chose one in Waimea to focus on and donate my meal kits to those 60 families in that neighborhood. And so I basically make meal kits with fresh local ingredients to give to these families. And in the meal kits, I include everything that is needed to make a recipe along with recipe cards and instructions and pictures in order to teach the families about nutrition and cooking and really get the kids involved as well. I think that's great. Can you go over the number of families that you are currently helping with the project? Yeah, so I, as I said, I'm donating to that one neighborhood in Waimea which houses 60 families. And my goal is to distribute meal kits to them once a month through my graduation, so for the next around six months. And I hope to, you know, continue my project after I leave by recruiting a rising senior at HPA to take it over, which is actually what I did this year. I took over the project from an HPA alum named Sarah Newcomb who started the project last year. So I can hope to continue the legacy as the years go by. I think that's awesome. And you along with partnering with local businesses and Kona kids, you also worked with a classmate on an educational video that ties in with Kahlo and how that's in the meal kit, is that right? I did, yeah. So for the first distribution, I also featured Tarot from the HPA garden. And I partnered with another student at HPA and her name is Chloe Delos Santos and her project is to bring awareness to the indigenous ingredients on this island and sort of try to educate people about them and bring back the tradition of using those ingredients and sustaining the people from the food grown on this land. So she made a really great video about the history of Tarot and how to prepare it. And I feature that in the recipe so that families receiving the meal kit could learn about that ingredient that they were cooking with and feel more connected to it. Let's go ahead and play that second video. So people have an idea of what you created along with your classmate. This Hawaiian genealogy story begins with Papa and Waakea. Waakea, the father sky, is responsible for descending sunshine and rain to fertilize the earth. Papa, the warm upper layer of earth is a counterpart to Waakea. Together they work in harmony to ensure human fertility. Papa and Waakea had given birth to the stars Hohoku Kalani. Hohoku Kalani and Waakea together birthed a stillborn known as Halua Nakalau Kapalini. Devastated with her child, she had planted him into the earth. This had sprouted the first kalo, the nourishment for the people. Hohoku Kalani and Waakea birthed yet another child named Halua, who was considered the first human. It is said that Halua had the responsibility to care for his brother, the kalo, as the kalo would care for him in terms of food and nourishment. Really fun video to make. So thank you, Olivia, for sharing that on break in the next couple of minutes. But before we do that, can you talk about the businesses that you work with when it comes to assembling the meal kits? Yeah, so for the first meal kit, as I mentioned in the video, I got venison donated by Maui Nui-Venison and lettuce donated from Haribara Farms, as well as kalo donated from the HPA Garden. And that was a really great first distribution. I was really shocked to have so many people willing to contribute to my project. And as I've started planning for my next distribution, which will be sometime in December, I've had even more local businesses offered to donate. So I have Honoka chocolate, Manele spice, donating a seasoning mix, shaka tea, donating tea, and Big Island coffee roasters, as well as Rebel Kitchen donating ketchup. And then my grandma and I are making Christmas cookies to make it a little bit fun and festive. And then I also have a local butcher who is donating an entire cow and they've processed it and they're donating ground beef. So this next month's meal kit is going to be featuring meatloaf. That's amazing. I love how you put all of that together. So we are going to go on break, but when we return, Olivia, I'd love for you to talk about some of the challenges that you've faced as well as how you come up with the recipes. So we will be right back. I'm Mitch Ewan, host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy of think tech Hawaii. Hawaii, the state of clean energy is about following the many clean energy initiatives in Hawaii. Hawaii, the state of clean energy appears weekly on think tech Hawaii at 4 p.m. on Wednesdays. Thank you so much for watching our show. We'll see you then. Aloha. We're connecting Hawaii business on think tech Hawaii. Our guest for today is Olivia Rose and she is talking about how she is using her capstone project as a senior at Hawaii Preparatory Academy to give back to the community. Olivia, let's go into some of the challenges that you've faced during this process and some solutions that you've come up with as well. Yes. So one of the first challenges I came across was COVID, of course, distributing food. There's a big worry about COVID and wanting to keep the families that I'm donating to safe. So what I did was I went online and got my Hawaii state food handlers card to ensure that I was knowledgeable about how to prepare the food in a sanitary manner and to make sure that I was keeping the families I'm donating to safe. And another challenge I came across was regarding the sustainability of my project because I don't want this to just last a few months while I'm a senior. I want it to continue on because I want to continue impacting my community. And I actually applied for a grant from Kupu, Hawaii and I'm very lucky to have received that grant of $1,000 which I will be putting to my project to the ingredients and materials that I'll need for my meal kits. But when I was talking to the members of Kupu, something that they brought to my attention was that I should prioritize supporting local farms because that would help make my project more sustainable. And then I could honor the fact that they are local businesses who may be struggling in the time of COVID and really focus on the local ingredients rather than buying imported goods. So what I've tried to do is try to use my grant money and other raised funds to pay local farms directly and seek out donations for some of the other goods. Like I mentioned earlier, the dry goods like chocolate and honey and tea and those sorts of things which will be included in my holiday gift box in December. I think it's great that nonprofits like Kupu have taken their time to guide you through the process and suggest methods as well that can help and give back to businesses and the community. So how do you come up with your recipes? And let's pull up our graphics five and six just so people have an idea of what you are including in the boxes. For the recipes, I mainly just start by seeing what the ingredients that I will have available for the distribution to be. So for the November one, I knew that I could get venison donated as well as lettuce and taro. And so I was just thinking and I kind of put them together to make Asian lettuce cups. And I got inspiration from some recipes online and sort of filled in the rest with my own creativity and based on what ingredients I could donate. And so that's sort of my process. And same thing for the December meatloaf meal kit. I knew that I was gonna be having ground beef donated. So I sought out some donations for ketchup which is sort of a necessary item for meatloaf as well as a couple other ingredients that I'm supplementing using my grant money. I love that. I love everything that you're doing. I know I've been redundant but I really do appreciate that. Do you have any future plans after high school especially since you're doing all this great stuff now before graduation? Yeah, well, I didn't really know actually before I even started this project what I wanted to do in college, what I wanted to study. I originally thought business which maybe I hope will still be part of my major or minor of some sort. But this project really made me realize how interested I am in learning about health and nutrition and educating others about it as well. So in college, I definitely wanna study nutrition and further my knowledge on this topic so that I can continue to have impacts like this on my community in the future. And after college, I hope to continue something like this maybe in the form of a nonprofit or business to try to end food insecurity and really work towards my goal of helping others and teaching others about cooking. Let's pull up the Kona Kids website so people can see the organization that you've partnered up with for these milk kids. And while we're doing that, can you go over some of the lessons that you've learned during this process? Yeah, absolutely. One of the main things that I learned is that there is an immense need in my community and communities all over the world for a program like this. I learned actually a few years ago in an online course called Stanford Introduction to Food and Health about the food inequalities across the nation and that about 10.5% of Americans face food insecurity, meaning they don't know where their next meal is coming from. And they often resort to fast food, which has led to an abundance of health problems, including in obesity epidemic. And that really inspired me to want to make a difference. And so by learning that and learning the need in my community, I realized how many people are willing to donate to a project like this and how passionate people are about their community and helping those in need, just that they don't often have an outlet to do that. And so by giving these local businesses and farms opportunities to donate and help those in their community that need it the most, they are really excited and really willing to give all that they can. I know you talked about working with businesses and they have been absolutely generous in giving materials and bulk to give to these families. How can individuals help out if they want to with your project and with the neighborhood that you are distributing the meal kits to? Yeah, I think the biggest thing right now for me is trying to raise money to supplement the ingredients that are donated and taking the advice from Coupu to focus my funds and grant money on paying local farms and businesses so that I can make my project more sustainable and support the local economy. So any donations are really helpful which can be donated through KonaKids.org and as well as any food donations, like I mentioned in the video, canned goods, dry goods, produce, anything that people can contribute, I would be more than happy to come up with a recipe and distribute it to these families because it's really what they need. Let's pull up our last graphic. Olivia, how can our viewers and our community members contact you? You can contact me at my email at orosaathpa.edu or my, well, those are my social medias in my website and then to donate money, you can donate through KonaKids.org which has a Google form and you can enter your information and mention my name for my project to donate any monetary funds. Is there anything else that you would like to add? I'm just really excited about this project and I want to thank everyone who has helped guide me so far and who has taught me so many things about nonprofits and businesses as well as helping my community and especially thanks to all of the businesses and farms that have donated to my project because it wouldn't have been possible without them and I'm really excited to continue and see where this goes. Thank you, Olivia. And again, I'd love that you were on the show just to remind everyone that you're never too young or too old or it's never too early or too late to give back to the community. And on that note, we do thank everyone for tuning in today. Thank you to J. Faida and the good staff at Think Tech Hawaii for making shows like this possible. We had Haley and Michael who helped us out for today's program. Until then, we will see you next time. Happy holidays.