 Aloha and welcome to Non-profits Mean Business 2. I'm your host Brandon Kenan and I'd like to tell you a little bit about our show. Our show is the shed light on the world of nonprofits here in Hawaii and the challenges that go into keeping their operating and hopefully inspiring you to find a nonprofit organization that you would like to support. With that I have the distinct pleasure of introducing Diane Paloma, the CEO of Lunalilo Home. Good afternoon. Aloha everybody. Thank you so much for having me. Well Diane, I'd like to know have you tell us a little bit about the mission of Lunalilo Home and the trust. Sure. So Lunalilo Home was established in 1883 and its mission is to honor, tend to, protect the well-being of elders. We know them as kupuna, kupuna are revered members of our society and especially in native Hawaiian culture. They are the ones who hold the ike. They hold the wisdom in their age and grace. And so we started off in the hills of Makiki and started in 1883 and it wasn't until 1927 that we came to Mauna Lua, which is also more modernly known as Hawaii Kai, in 1927. So back in 1927 and it was just fish pond, no Kalani on the Ole Highway, no Costco, no Coco Marina shopping center. And we've been there ever since. So I put my background to Lunalilo Home because it is over 100 years old. We've been here for a long time and right now we do three main programs. We do adult residential care. So we have kupuna with us 24-7 being cared for. We also have an adult daycare program, which is daycare, runs Monday through Saturday, which we are starting to reopen in the next couple of weeks and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. And then we finally have meal delivery program, which delivers hot meals to the vicinity, anywhere from east of Honolulu, from about Kaimuki to Waimanalo. And so those are three main, I'll just call them lines of businesses, for lack of a better word. And really our mission is really to be able to take care of our kupuna in ways that, you know, if people are working and you cannot, please consider us and, you know, please consider the work that we've been doing for over 137 years. Oh, that's amazing. Your background, a little bit about schools, job, something that's near to your heart also, Hula. Okay. So I started off pre-med. So I, you know, I got good grades. I thought I was going to be a physician. And then in college, organic chemistry derailed me. But then it made me also think about other healthcare avenues that didn't involve necessarily medical school or becoming a physician. And so I took on a lot of opportunities when I got my master's, ended up with a PhD in healthcare administration. And I really found other ways of incorporating health into my passion, which is Native Hawaiian culture. Yes, I am a Hula practitioner. It's kind of the foundational grounding of values that kind of permeate through all of the work that I do and communities and other boards that I serve on. And it's just been a really nice blend of my passion for Native Hawaiian health and the ability to work in the healthcare industry in Hawaii, which has so many facets and which is so unique and really different from how healthcare is done on the continental US. We have, we were the, Hawaii was the first in 1976 to have the prepaid healthcare act where businesses would offer healthcare insurance to their employees. And so over time, we've seen many, many changes in this infrastructure. And yet institutions like Queens or institutions like ours at the Nabila Home have persisted regardless of the changes in, you know, this thing called Medicare or this thing called Medicaid health insurance and all these other things that come up in healthcare. So to me, this is probably the most exciting job I've had. It's also the one with the most Kuleana with Kuleana's responsibility. Sometimes it's translated as burden, but Kuleana also translates to privilege. So I really feel it's a, it's a privilege for me to be able to enter into this industry and be able to give back to a community that has, you know, the community basically raises every child. And so how can the child give back to the community, which is what I, what I see you guys doing here with, with these sessions and with these online webinars. So thanks. Oh, that's so awesome. You're so, and you're such a humble person. You really have done quite a bit already going into this. I know that the hula, it means so very much to you as does the Hawaiian culture and being very knowledgeable in that we were, that Atlas insurance, we were privileged to have you as our speaker to kick off our year. And you sing beautifully and you really, really do, I think emulate the aloha spirit as well. I'm going to credit my credit, all my teachers for that comment. Oh, okay. I like that. No, that's so good. So how would you say that given the current situation that we're in, the COVID-19, how's that, how's that affected you guys? I mean, being that you are, you are an at-risk population there. That, yeah. And so that question, right, that's a loaded question of for the past three months for everybody. You know, and I, we're talking before this about how not only do I have an existing vulnerable population, but now it's even made more vulnerable because of COVID. We've had to do a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes. And in the beginning, it was much more reactive to what we knew. And of course, as everybody knew at the time, like nobody knew anything about coronavirus or how it moved, how can, I think we're looking mainly at how can we keep our kupuna safe? One of the main things we did was temporarily suspend our adult daycare, right? And part of that decision was that we realized coronavirus was in the community. And we had community members coming to our facility every day on a daily basis. And so how do I keep my residential clients safe? How do I keep the ADC clients safe? So we made the conscious decision to close our ADC. That was about three months ago. And so now we're finally in the point of trying to reopen. I think we're going to be reopening by the end of this month. However, we have had to make many modifications. In general, nursing care homes is very communal, right? So you have group activities, you have communal dining, you want that social interaction, you want the day-to-day activities of interaction with other kupuna. So that has still been maintained, but now we do it across three rooms instead of one. They don't do any communal dining together. They do it separately in different places. They're about six to nine feet apart when they're eating, which really, you know, kind of, it's a hard thing to do and hard thing to explain to someone who is closely tied to their seats. They're same four people that they eat with three meals a day. When we first implemented some of the changes, some of the kupuna were like, where's my seat? My seat is right here and there's no chair there. What's going on, right? And we're like, oh, well, Auntie, we had to move your chair over because you got to keep a little bit more distance from each other. And they're like, okay, but my chair is supposed to go here. Why is it not here? So that was, you know, a little bit of learning curve for kupuna, but pretty soon they got used to it. They're really kind of more adaptable than we think we are, I think. And in a way, I think it's one other way that we can keep them safe and still keep their regular schedule and the normal day-to-day activities without too much disruption, right? They still watch TV. We still have activities. We just have to do those activities ourselves because our volunteers have not been able to return back. We hope that they'll be able to come back at some point, but not sure what that means quite yet about having external people who are out in the community come in. We had probably about 300 plus volunteers throughout the year in terms of group activities, church services, regular social visits, even things like activities, flower arrangements. I mean, every single activity we had was pretty much led by volunteer groups. I'll say the ones that I miss the most are the school groups. Having youth and kids around is really an energy boost. It's exhausting sometimes, too, with my own kids. And it's really making us think about how we provide that level of touch and care and nurturing while we're masked up. They can't see our faces. We're always gloved when we are caring for them. And I think that human nature, that human touch, is what I feel has been the hardest to kind of disavow when you have a virus that you have no idea what it's going to do. So, anyways, I'm sorry for being so long in my answer, but many, many, many changes. I'm like, what hasn't changed for all of us in the past three months. Yeah. Well, the good news is, too, is you have some, I believe, you have some raised gardens there. That was something that you implemented and it allows, you know, you can talk a little bit about that. I'm sure that gives them some fresh air and some ability to get out and about. Oh, yeah. So, luckily, we have a five-acre property. And so while we're close to visitors, the kupuna can still go into the garden. The gardens, I will say, have been phenomenal in transforming not just the, you know, the atmosphere and the activities at the home, but they've also been really big in contributing to our meal delivery and our meal program. We started that off maybe about a year and a half ago, just wondering what we could grow, because I always think Hawaii is super dry and arid. But really, it's pretty fertile. And we found that you can yield a lot of vegetables, which we use in our meals and our meal delivery. With COVID, our meal deliveries have exponentially taken off. Yeah. So with all kupuna now, you know, kind of being homebound, well, with everybody being homebound, our meal delivery program has skyrocketed. So where we did an average of about 1000 meals out of our kitchen per month. That was like January, February. In May, we just did 6,700 out of our kitchen. And so, you know, we're thinking, okay, yes, it's great that we can provide this need to the community in terms of meal delivery. We have a great partnership with Hawaii Meals on Wheels, Office of Hawaiian Affairs has come in. Hawaii Community Foundation has helped us out tremendously. But we're also wondering, we realize that that is, you know, that's a temporary emergency fund. And what happens to kupuna once those funds are gone? You know, that'll be the real question for all of us. What do we do when the COVID money runs out, and we're all okay and stable now? But when that happens, does that mean they just go back to grocery shopping? Does it mean they don't need the meals anymore? So we are in talk with communities now to be able to try and figure out, you know, before it happens, what do we do to service that need? No, that's good to be planning ahead. What about donations? Like right now, there's a lot of food that's being donated to the communities from various organizations. Is that something that you are receiving that you would like to receive? Yeah. Yeah. So we have been really grateful and thankful to be the recipients of food from Aloha Harvest. So this is a funny story. In the beginning of the year, our gardens were so abundant with vegetables, we had reached out to organizations like the Food Bank and Aloha Harvest to say, you know what, if we have this, if we have this extra vegetables, can we give them to you and can you help us distribute them? And little did we know that, you know, honestly, like three weeks after that meeting, we would be the ones on meeting that food and meeting those donations. We also had some food box drops for our employees because we realized, okay, we didn't necessarily want them having to go to the grocery store multiple times per week to pick up food for dinner. So that was so tremendously helpful. And I think when people, when the community gives to us, we feel the added need and kuleana to give it right back to the community, right? So you give us food, okay, so how can we push out better meals for you? If you give us, you know, donations, how do we utilize that to increase the activity for kuleana? So things like that, it just kind of motivates us to do more, which is what I think we need here in Hawaii now. You know, that's, that really speaks to your passion and your sense of community. And I will say that, you know, I am fortunate to participate in Polo Valley and through another nonprofit that I get a chance to be a part of. And yeah, you know, that was the whole impetus for this show and everything was to try to coordinate effort and try to help each other out in this situation. I got to tell you, Hawaii is just an amazing place. And we have shown that in these times more than anything. And I think it's bringing our communities back together. So what kind of changes, well, we talked a little bit about that. So what are some of the current projects that you have in the works? And what are some of the projects you hope to achieve in the next several years? So that's a great question, right, because it changes almost weekly with the COVID changes. What I think really, and I'm sure not just our business is looking at it, but all nonprofits and all businesses is how do we financially sustain our organization so that we can continue the jobs for our employees? We can continue the services that we provide? It's, I mean, it's a tremendous task to be able to care for Kupuna. And how do we do that during a crisis when, you know, like 25%, almost 30% unemployment in Hawaii? That's going to be probably our main focus for a while is the financial sustainability. While, you know, and I'm referring back to our strategic plan, and that's the first and foremost one is financial sustainability. I would also say that our next plan is looking at how do we optimize our effectiveness and how do we expand our outreach, right? So, yes, we're locked in by 42 beds. Yes, we're locked in by probably a finite amount of meals that we can deliver. But how do we reach more Kupuna? Because we know that the ones that we serve are not the only ones that are in need. It's the constant dilemma of this infinite need and finite resources, right, that most nonprofits are always dealing with, like, do we find extramural funding, do we rent a grant, do we do all these other things, do we fundraise even more, have a big gala? Those are the kinds of projects I think that generally the home is going to be seriously looking at and being able to say, okay, how do we sustain this model in an environment that is been up, upheaved and overturned and, you know, kind of laid out flat smack on its back. What, you know, do we have the same model going forward? And I think it's really pushing us to challenge ourselves is that if this model doesn't work, we change whether or not we have the desire to or not. I think we have to change, we have to modify. And I know that everybody is facing those same questions too. How do you change restaurants? How do you change bars? How do you change visitor industry? How do you change hotels? All of those things that we just kind of take for granted in the past are now kind of like, holy smokes, we got to get this together and we got to get it together quick before, you know, the temporary emergency funds that are sustaining us now, when they run out, what happens? So that's kind of what I foresee. And I mean, ultimately when, you know, I'll say pre-COVID, you know, one of my goals was to have LunarLila Home, you know, some type of product or service in every community because not all kupuna necessarily want to come to Hoi Kai. You know, kupuna want to stay in their communities. They want to stay close and connected to families. Why wouldn't we try and have a LunarLila Home or meal delivery start on the west side? Why not on the neighbor island? Because not like kupuna are only located on Oahu either. So I'm trying to think a little bit more statewide and serving our native Hawaiian kupuna and all the other kupuna that have grown up here in Hoi and have really big contributions to make and to have a place for working families, right? This is a high expensive place to live. And so when you have the added burden of caring for kupuna while raising children, it's another layer that, you know, local residents have to consider. And I'm trying to think of what my role through LunarLila Home would be in that mix, right? What kind of care could I provide for them that would keep them working, keep them paying for tuition for their kids, supporting their families and almost reducing the burden of kupuna care for individuals so that they can make their living? You know, that's what, you know, and I said this in the beginning before the show started was that's what makes you so perfect for the role that you play is I recall you mentioning as our keynote speaker that, you know, King LunarLila actually was one of the largest property holders in the state of Hawaii. And that his, here's a guy who was going to leave his entire estate, if you will, to his people, people he would never meet, people he would never know. The generosity in that concept. Oh, good job. You were listening on that presentation. You know, I got to say, I was so impressed with you when you, the way you, like I say, you just, you emulate that beautiful aloha spirit and really does live here in Hawaii and it does live inside of all of us who choose to embrace that. And I think you're wanting to bring that same level of passion and service to the outer islands that that's just, that's exactly what King LunarLila would have wanted you to do. And there you are doing exactly that. I'm just, you know, I just think you're amazing. I do. I'm so glad to have you on this show. And you're and so you are correct. LunarLila had at the time of his death over 400,000 acres of property, which all subsequently got sold off in order to build a home and do other things. And yeah, we have only five acres left of that. And that and our five acres currently is not the actual original property, just the five acres was a donated property over time. So yes, it's a it's a little bit of a hard history. But what I feel is that I'm here as one sliver of a long legacy that is LunarLila home. And so if I can make the incremental improvements now, then we'll be here for another 137 years, and we'll be here in perpetuity. Right. So that's what I think he really foresaw in that in the future for his people. And not very many people think that way in today's society. And so while I while I say it's unique, I think it's also very characteristic of of Hawaii of the way we we think here. We have limited resources, you know, we're in the middle of the Pacific, which is a real advantage right now I'd say during COVID. I would agree. Yeah. And we have to find ways of working together in order to survive. So that's how it's been. That's how it'll be. And I think will will be the most resilient one. And I gotta prove it to the world. We most certainly will. And I, you know, I believe that there are no coincidences. So you're obviously a very important part of this whole process moving forward. And it was by no coincidence that you were prepared for this position. And you are doing such a tremendous job. I know we're coming into some of the final minutes, we have about three minutes left. I know that you normally hold a couple of fundraisers every year to support Lunalito home. Do you have, what is your plan to manage the shortfall or what how? Yeah, talk a little bit about that. Oh, every year we're really well known for our Lunalilo home annual benefit Luau, which happens around his birthday, which is around birthday January 31. So we did have that Luau just before COVID hit. So I cannot say how thankful I am for that. But going forward, we had to cancel a couple of, we call them moonlight, mele, benefit dinners under the chiave tree. It's a backyard dinner. That's just, you know, kind of magical utilizing the plant from our garden. We also had to cancel our golf tournament, which is every July. So yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure everybody is in the same way, hurting in that same sense. What we have been doing is writing more grants and looking for extramural funding. And we have been accepting wonderful donations. So when people hear our story, we are really thankful for the donations that come in through our website. And you can donate at Lunalilo.org. And really trying to find ways of having virtual fundraisers, which I realize is probably harder than having the actual fundraiser itself. And just we're trying to strategize what everybody else is doing so that we're not tapping the same people at the same time for the same resources. And really just trying to look at what large gatherings of people will look like. So our annual luau usually has 400 people. We don't think that's going to be able to be possible next January, especially if there's no vaccine. I mean, it's in the middle of flu season. So really, we've been relying heavily on independent donations, which we truly appreciate. They do go to work. Oh, yeah. So how can our listeners support your mission at Lunalilo Home? They can visit us. Lunalilo.org is our website. And we have the ability to be able to donate online. You can give us a call. We also have on our website a wish list of items that are highly used that we accept in a donation box. So we do have a donation box. And you can give us a call at 395-1000, really easy number to remember with any questions or contributions that they can make. Very good. Though that's amazing. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day for us today and giving us a little bit more information about what's going on over at Lunalilo Home and how we can best support you and help you out. I'm glad you have a web page link. And I would like to talk to you a little bit as well at some point in the near future about what we can maybe coordinate after this. Yeah, great. And my email is Diane at Lunalilo.org for those people who ask questions, but we maybe didn't have time to connect with, always interested in hearing from your viewers too about collaborations or things that we can do to help you guys. Outstanding. Really appreciate your time today. And of course, we'll meet once again, no doubt about it. Yes, face to face. Thank you. Yes, I know, right? Enjoy your afternoon. Thank you so much. Aloha, everybody. Thank you. Thanks so much, Brandon.