 Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the ThinkTech livestreaming network series. I'm your host Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me today is Stephanie Phan, the commissioner of the Siji Foundation of Hawaii. Today we're going to talk about the wellness center that's opening there. So let's get started. Tell us exactly what the Siji Foundation is and how it got started. Okay, Siji was founded like, I don't know, almost 60 years ago in Taiwan by our founder, Master Chen Yan. And it's a charity organization actually locally. It's founded like 27 years ago. And so we started out, we had a free clinic in downtown. We actually do a lot of charity work. When there is a disaster, our people are there. So for example, Ukraine, we have people there already now. But locally, for example, when there was a volcano eruptions, we went to the volcano site. We actually help out and give up debit cards. When the recent flood on the island, our team also worked with Red Cross to give out debit cards. And on our Kaimuki office, we actually run a Chinese school for the Siji Academy. For those who are interested in learning Chinese culture and also the language. So haven't you guys also done work with the homeless and you give out food to the homeless? I understand it's mostly plant. I think it's all plant-based food, actually. Right. So not during the pandemic. We actually did some. But then before the pandemic, we used to go and we would serve, we would call it five-star restaurant experiences. We will provide whole food, plant-based diet. And actually, we don't just kind of like cook and in the fashion, we want to like serve with a restaurant experiences. So with fresh foods and all the whole food and things like that. So for example, we go to the IHS. We have been doing that. And how often were you doing that before the pandemic? In the, for the homeless, because basically on our site, we kind of offer when there's any gathering, we actually offer a vegetarian diet. And so, but then at the, with the homeless population, it depends, but usually we do it accordingly. And the food that you guys have, and that's mostly cooked by volunteers, I understand. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And are you guys transitioning to completely plant-based without dairy as well? Right. So, so what happened is our teacher, Master Ching Yen, has been promoting whole food, whole food. She didn't really talk about whole food plant-based diet, but, you know, just vegetarian diet, looking at how the world is now, how, you know, consumptions of meat and beef and these things actually create a problem for our planet. So, and, and how, according to Booth's teaching, how important it is to kind of like give rise to that heart compassion, as you kind of vow that I want to become a, you know, I don't want to eat meat. And so that's, that has been always our mission. But for me, it has been very hard. I feel that, you know, you don't want to teach anyone like, you know, this is a right way to do, because you had to respect everyone. So, the way that we've been promoting is that it will be good to eat more vegetable and less, you know, less meat and that, that, you know, that aspect. But ever since then, when we found out that 21-day kickstart, because in Malaysia and in Taiwan, because in Taiwan, our organization had about seven hospitals, and they were promoting the 21-day kickstart, and with tremendous health effect. So, with that, I kind of, I gave us a confidence that we should promote it, because if you're going to talk about the health of the planet, sometimes people just say, okay, you know, you can do that, but don't, you know, I don't want you to kind of like, you know, sort of judge me on that. So, for us is that, you know, it's good for your health, and if you can try to do it more, eat more vegetable, it's good for your, your, your own health, but it's also good for the planet Earth also. Yeah, so what happened with the 21-day kickstart? I think they had it in Taiwan and Malaysia, and what other countries did they have these? Indonesia, basically is many of the, you know, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, but then, you know, USA is the hardest one to get started. You know, Hawaii actually was the first one to kind of say, we're going to do it. I don't know how long we have been working on this, and we actually get, you know, several restaurants say that they would support us, and we were working on it. We wanted to provide 21-day hopeful plant-based diet for people to join us and have them kind of see, you know, the difference when you kind of like commit to this kind of diet. But what happened is because it's the cost, and recently because, you know, the inflation, everything, we feel that it's important. We need to start no matter what, and especially with everything's opened up. So actually, starting this Saturday, we're actually, every Saturday, we're providing, we're basically inviting our members to come in and just try it out and be healthy. And, you know, after the, after the pandemic, I'm saying after the pandemic, you know, when now that it's opening. But it may, because on the first week, Saturday, may, we actually have what we call a Buddha bathing day, which is a day that celebrate just like how we celebrate, you know, Jesus' birthday. I mean, Christmas, and the the Buddhists celebrate, you know, Buddha's birthday on Buddha bathing day. So we actually, on the first week of May, we actually having a what we call Buddha bathing day celebration. So but then the week after we're going to have a three week of people need to sign up to try it out a like a 21 day kickstart, but it's only that Saturday that we're offering the vegetarian diet and people, but you had to sign up is going to be a little bit number, but we're working on it. It's actually a whole food plant based diet, correct? We're trying to do a whole food plant based diet. It's going to be 21 days and anybody can sign up. So even, you know, people who are not part of the temple yet, and how would people sign up for it? And what's the cost? Where is there a website people can go to at this time? At this time, we're still working on the website, but it will be coming out soon. They're working on the Google form for people to sign up because right now I was told that there's they're going to limit in numbers, but you know, we're hoping that we're going to get as many as possible. Everything's free, you know, free whole food plant based diet for lunch. And also we would have exercise, you know, information regarding how to go about, you know, living more healthily. Yes. And I think it's great that everybody can sign up and it's free of cost because the problem we were having with the 21 day kickstart and for those of, you know, those out there that do not know what the 21 day kickstart is, it's a program that was kind of first started by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. And there's actually an app that you can download where they have different recipes and people were going to just try being vegan for, you know, our plant based for 21 days. And it's the theory is that it takes 21 days to sort of change your palate and kind of get rid of all the bad stuff you've been eating, like, you know, sugar, salt, oily foods and kind of restart your palate and then, you know, kind of start from there. And it's also a small time period. So people aren't intimidated because if people say, Oh, I'm going plant based right away. It's kind of overwhelming for people. But 21 days, anybody can do anything for 21 days. And so that was a theory behind that. And we had tried to, you know, I was working with Stephanie trying to get the 21 day kickstart going, but the cost was quite costly. And if you thought about it, you know, breaking it down, meal per meal, it might have not been a lot, but just having all those meals together for a person to pay for that. And then the delivery and pickup was a little bit difficult. Now, in these other countries that they've done it very successfully, the cost of food is a lot less expensive there. I mean, how much did, do you have any idea how much the food costs for those participants over there? I think it's about $4 per meal. Yeah, I mean, that's so important. Yeah, here, I mean, we were trying to have $15 per meal, but you know, it adds up because you have, you know, we're offering lunch and dinner. So that's $30 per day 30 times 210. That's already, you know, 630 or something, right? So it was quite pricey for people, you know, just for 21 days. But if you do have a healthy conditions, and if you need to go see the physician, and this can be an opportunity to kind of like, you know, improve your health, and just imagining that it to go see the physician or the kind of cause it will take, right? So it's not really expensive, but then it just, for most people, you just don't, it's beyond, I mean, people would not think that it's worth that. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy what people think is expensive, because that's true that, you know, you might think, well, it's really expensive to pay for this food, but would you rather be paying for more expensive food that's healthy, or paying for high blood pressure medications and surgeries, and other procedures, and, you know, doctor visits, which is definitely more unpleasant. And, you know, we wanted to show people through this 21 day kickstart that actually plant-based food can be delicious, and people don't always realize that. But actually, I will say, because I go to the Siji Foundation as a volunteer, the food is very delicious, and the volunteer cooks there are wonderful. So, you know, hopefully some of you will, who are, you know, trying to convert to a plant-based diet will come, and, you know, taste the food and try it out. So, tell us more about the, I mean, I guess, if you could show some of the pictures now, Eric, with the pictures that we have over there. So, I think what I want to explain is that, because this organization began, really is a charity organization, we do a lot of charity work, but charity began with ourselves, right? So, when we start looking at the way that what we can do for the local population, and it begins with health, and we feel that it's central for health and wellness, with all the things that we do, and coming together can truly serve our local population. And that's why we started out, we've been working on this for quite some time now, but it takes effort, because we're all volunteers. And, but we have this conviction that if we work together, things can change. So, we even have, like, you know, starting out doing the gardening, right? So, there are some other things that are happening, but- People are using the gardening, Eric. She has pictures of the garden, yeah. Right. So, I didn't show you how it was like, okay? So, but it was that the whole yard wasn't planned, and then recently, we have someone from the vegan society actually kind of helping us, and she becomes our volunteer. He has worked on the yard constantly. And then, you know, we have a lot of, you know, other volunteers coming in to help. And so, like today, they're actually cooking some of the out of their harvest at our office right now. So. So, what do you currently have growing in the garden then, Stephanie? So, some of the squash, the Chinese squash, and then we had all kinds of, I mean, vegetable, tomatoes, and then we also have the basil, things that are kind of spices, and then also, you know, oh, they have the pumpkin, right? So, they also have some fruit. Nice. Nice. Yeah. So, I mean, it's great to see things go from garden to table to, so if anybody's also interested in being a volunteer, what about people interested in volunteering? How can they start volunteering, you know, either through the garden or, you know, if they're interested in, you know, for our wellness classes, doing the yoga or other things, how can people get involved if they're interested? They can go on a website and there's this volunteer, you had to go to the Pacific Island region and then, well, you don't have to, just go to the website and there's this volunteering, www.siji.us, something like that. And you'll be able to, you know, there is this volunteer tab that you can write down and apply for it. You can also call our office, 808-737-8885. That's our office number, 808-737-8885. And, you know, and come on in and just join us, be part of this group that promoting vegetarian, hopeful, plant-based diet, and also do something good for ourselves, right? You can do gardening, you can go out, we also do, right now we don't do it. We're going back, we have been like doing the Palo Alto Chinese home, we haven't worked with them. We call this the heartless life program, which means that, you know, in everyone's heart, there is a lotus. You know how lotus is, right? The lotus come out from the mud, but they remain pure and fresh, right? And so, and fragrant. So we hope that every one of us will come to this place, not only come in and really like take every whatever obstacle in this world, we'll take that as nutrients and in the same way, not only we have food for thought, and we also want to, you know, really take on healthy diet physically. Yeah, so I think that's great. I mean, with the wellness, let's go through the wellness program a little bit more. So we have, what are the components you're going to have? Aren't there specific components? Like there's going to be a food portion, obviously, and, you know, trying to teach people how to make delicious plant-based food. Number one, right? So number one, you can see one of the, the PowerPoint has all the recipe that we have every Wednesday on the Honolulu advertiser. Next one, there is a whole group of, you know, recipes that we do it every Wednesday, you'll be able to see the pictures, yeah, of the, you can actually get the recipe, but then that's one part. And the other part is, you know, and so you can, right there. So basically is that that's on one part, we want to promote the vegetarian diet. This way that we've been getting people who kind of like learn about the recipe that they want to come in. And when they call, we ask them, come on in, just meet our different volunteers chef. And then, you know, they can discuss about how to cook a better meal or something like that. So to begin with. On the website, are those recipes? I can't quite see it that well, but. This is on Star Bulletin's website. Oh, okay. So that's not evidence. People can go and try. We're right now putting into ours. So we're working to get those into the Center for Health and Wellness. And the other part is what we call the healthy lifestyle project, right? So what we're trying to do, we're going to do workshop, you know, with physician joining us, giving workshops at the, the one in May is part of the healthy lifestyle project where you just kind of like want to kick it started with people like kind of like promoted come together has some, you know, and be able to kind of do some exercise yoga is Tai Chi and just to get it started. But we also have what we call community classes. So because we in our side, there are quite a lot of classes, no classroom and we're working to give more people to kind of join us and to be able to offer classes like Tai Chi, you know, different kind of yoga and different kinds of classes, medications. And then we're also, I mean, also the wellness program, planning to have different physicians talk about different aspects of wellness as well. So I'll be talking about, you know, obviously diets, how to sort of optimize weight loss and also, you know, how to kind of optimize your other medical problems like high blood pressure, diabetes, you know, the big ones that most people in the United States have. So you know, I don't know whether you know him, but he has been like coming out and talk about how important sleep for everyone's health. And so we're hoping that he can come on and share with everyone regarding, you know, how to have like some sleep and be effective in terms of helping our own health. Did you say that was Stephanie? I didn't quite catch that. Nothing awkward young. Oh, he's a retired OBGYN, but... Oh, okay, okay. Were you going to, just in case people are interested, were you guys planning on, I think we were planning on recording the sessions too, right? Or I don't know if people will be able to watch through Zoom, was there any intention? Well, there's no idea. I think we should, we should, you know, I think that's a good idea. We should make it available for people to join us or having the recording done now. I mean, just in case the pandemic comes back or anything, you know. Yeah. So what happened is Dr. C. D. Lai, because remember Katie, our younger volunteer, they kind of presented to Dr. C. Dai because Dr. Shirley Chen is coming this Saturday, right? So they kind of promoted to Dr. C. Dai. And Dr. Lai really liked this idea because we had the free clinic before. We actually have a dental clinic in Chinatown. We had it since 1998 to 2015. And then because they're not after the Obamacare and there's not as much, you know, and then the rent was so high, so we kind of canceled it in terms of, so we just continue the service in Chinatown. But then we started having the service that I call the chemical office from some time. But somehow later, you know, we become referral service if we need someone who needs some kind of service and we try to refer them. So this time again, when Dr. Lai listened to what we kind of presented, he's really happy. You think that the Center for Health and Wellness is what, you know, our organization, we really like to provide for the local, you know, our residents and the young can come and enjoy one another, enjoy the food, enjoy the exercise, enjoy healthy together, something like that. I mean, you can also come if you don't live in Kaimukui, correct? You can come from Kapolei, I mean, because there's people, there's members like, you know, Betty, right? She lives very far away and same with Wendy. So, right, so, so basically, because we have a Chinese school on Saturday and Sunday, so that is still going on. We, you know, we are looking at, so basically it will offer scholarship for those with financial needs. And another one that we really like to do, I think we have it on the slide, is the, what we call the High School Si Sao Program. The High School Si Sao Program for Tsiji is basically they, it's connected to the presidential volunteer, you know, some kind of president, I think I have it on there. So Luisa, who's in charge of this, and right now, starting in April, we're actually having this Earth Day celebration. There will be a group of young people working with us and try to gain more hours in through their volunteer work. And there is actually a scale, you know, if you kind of volunteer 250 hours for a high school student or 150, I'm sorry, 150 hours, you actually get a medal from this year from President Biden, right? So, right, so this one is actually what our young people did is to gathering book for the, on the Wai Nai population there, why some of the Wai Nai school there. So that's, that's one of the things that that right now currently, we're trying to get young people to come join us to do different kinds of volunteer work. And because we partner with also with Red Cross. And so there are other work that we can do as a team. So how did you manage to get the medal from President Biden? I'm curious. So this is a, I think it's our national project. It's our U.S.A. national team actually connect with what, you know, that committee and then we're part, we're one of the organizations that are connected. So anyone who volunteer with us, they actually, up to a certain point, they will be recognized even with adults also. Oh, nice, nice. That's wonderful. I mean, in the meantime, before May, if people are interested in a plant-based diet, is there anything that they can do besides waiting? Can they go to Siji? I mean, just randomly show up or what, what can people do? I think, I think this is what we need to do. We actually haven't done this yet, but people have been calling. So again, they can call our office number, 808-737-8885. You can call this number. Another thing is, you know, you can drop by Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but it's better that you call first so that we know that we have, we need to get an extra pair of chopsticks and more food for someone to join us for lunch. Yeah. Yes, that's great. So I mean, I think this is a great resource for the public. And I don't know. It's, it's just wonderful that something like this is available for people, because a lot of people, you know, we used to have the Ornish program, but now, you know, due to the COVID pandemic, it was hard to keep that going. So now there's sort of an alternative to that. And so it'll be kind of great if this really takes off. So I certainly hope so, but it takes time. And we just kind of, we actually had a meeting, Betty was just saying that, you know, we need to just try it. And so that's why it made original. They were like, are we okay? You know, are we going to do this? And in the end, everyone says that let's just move it. And from that three weeks, we'll gain some experiences. And then we can talk about the next stage. But we kind of want to put that, you know, our vision there. And that's why we kind of with this, the webpage, right? So we're not completely there, but we're setting up the webpage for us to go move to that direction. And we were very convinced that it can help. Yeah, I think it's great. So if anybody wants to, you know, just put it on their calendar, the first Saturday or the first three Saturdays in May, that's when the program is going to start, it comes, it goes from 10 to 12. So contact the CG foundation, either call them, or you can also just show up in Kaimuki. It's right beyond where the Goodwill was on, what's the street it's on? It's on Wilhelmina Rise, correct? Right, Wilhelmina Rise. One, two, three, eight. One, two, three, eight, Wilhelmina Rise. But yeah, so definitely keep it on your calendar and hope to see you. And we're unfortunately out of time now. So we're going to have to wrap it up. Again, I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. This is Healthy Planet on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. We've been talking with Stephanie Fan, the commissioner of the CG foundation. Thanks to you all for being here. Thanks to Eric, our broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at ThinkTech for hosting our show. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. I'll see you on April 14th for more of Healthy Planet on ThinkTech, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet. Our next show will be about the Hawaiian Monk Seal and feature Dr. Sophie Worisky of the Marine Mammal Center. If you have ideas for the show, please contact me at HealthyPlanetThinkTech at gmail.com. Check out my website at graceandhawaii.com for more information on my projects, including future show guests. I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill. Aloha, everyone. Thank you so much for watching ThinkTech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.