 Okay everyone and welcome to Lillian's vegan world where we explore the fascinating world of veganism and the plant-based diet. This is my eighth episode and I am very very excited to introduce my guest today from the newly opened Aloha Animal Sanctuary. So big welcome to Jessica. Thank you. Thank you for coming on to the show. Yeah thank you so much for having me. Pleasure. I am very excited to have you on and hear about the animal sanctuary so we've got lots to talk about today. First Jessica Palomino. Yes your executive director over at the Aloha Animal Sanctuary. Tell us a bit about yourself. Are you are you from Hawaii? Yeah so I've actually been living in Hawaii for 10 years now and I'm actually from the mainland so I was born and raised in Utah and then I came here for college like 10 years ago. Wow. And now I can't leave. So does a college student actually get any studying done when they get sent to a place like Hawaii? I did. But you must be one of the rare ones. A nursing student so I knew I had to buckle down and but yeah it was hard. Okay. Wanted to surf instead. Yeah before the show you did mention to me that you are actually nursing you are a nurse. Yeah yeah my career I still work as a pediatric ICU nurse at Kepiolani. Wow so you're working with kids. Yeah. And now you're working with animals. Yeah two of my favorite things. I was just I was just gonna say two of my favorite things and I also have a really big soft spot for older people. Oh really? The in-betweens so-so like I think I prefer animals to people. Yeah it's equal. I worked with elderly people before I started doing kids. Oh wow nice maybe you can work with me because I'm gonna be old in a few years. Well you're on a vegan diet. Yeah that's true so I'm gonna be here for a long time. I hope my fiance prepares for that very long life of mine. So Jessica you you've been here for 10 years. You are now working at the Aloha Animal Sanctuary. Before we go into that are you vegan just out of curiosity? Yeah so I am vegan. Okay I've been vegan for a year and a half and my only regret is not doing it sooner. That is what everyone says and I have to admit I'm the same yeah but here you are you are vegan living on a plant-based diet. Yeah. What made you transition to that sort of a lifestyle? Yeah I've been vegetarian well okay from the beginning I was raised in a completely non-vegan family like my family would take me and go fishing with me and I just remember being a kid and never I was like trying to rescue the fish. So I went to being like a vegetarian and then I went to being vegetarian and then what sparked me to be a vegan was about a year and a half ago I saw this whole campaign on how dairy cows are treated and I had never I just thought that cows always made milk I didn't realize that mothers make milk. Yeah and that pushed me over the edge. Yeah there's some incredible documentaries and shows out there that really are great to educate and I hope that's you know people are open-minded to watching them and then making that choice for themselves whether they feel it's worth you know putting what they do on their plates every day when there's so much that goes on behind closed doors. Yeah so here we are now you're also you're still nursing part-time and you're at the Aloha Animal Sanctuary please tell us about this this amazing place. Yeah so it kind of incorporates two of my really big passions because I really care about animal welfare and then I also really care about people and their health too and so the whole sanctuary is kind of a combination of both of those things because at the sanctuary we rescue animals and then we also do a lot of education to people about how to help animals not suffer and then we also help them learn about how to help themselves with their own diet which is a plant based diet too. Awesome so it is intertwined. It is yeah it really is it's two of the things I'm most passionate about honestly. Yeah and where is the Aloha Animal Sanctuary? It opened six months ago is that correct about half a year ago. Whereabouts is it located? Yeah we're brand new and we're located on the east side of Oahu in Kahalu which is kind of by Kaneohe for those who don't know. Okay. So two acre lots on agricultural land. Awesome and so how many animals have you got there now? How many did you start with and how many do you have now? Yeah so our first rescue was a pig named Haku and we just started with him we accepted him January 1st of this year. Oh well. He ran in the year of the pig too actually the new year. Yes yes that's actually my my zodiac sign in my year. Chinese New Year? No yeah. The Chinese zodiac or horoscope whatever it is yeah yeah okay so he's a nice New Year's gift for the Sanctuary. And then now we have three pigs total two ducks three ducks now a chicken a rooster a bunch of wild chickens and roosters and it's only been six months so we're just starting we want to grow sustainably but we do want to help as many animals as we can. Okay awesome and staff how many staff are working there or volunteering there to to make all of this happen? Yeah so there's three directors myself and then Anchi Howitz and Hannah and then we also have a rest of us and we're all just volunteers too none of us are paid okay so even the directors are not paid and then on top of that we have 30 volunteers who come every single week twice a day yeah it's amazing they're just our weekly caregiver volunteers and they do a lot of the work they feed the animals clean up after them make sure everybody's doing well and then we're always just overseeing everything. Okay well there's so much to talk about you actually sent in some slides for us some photos and and video footage for us to see so let's start with one of the slides and then you can explain look at how adorable yeah that's Debbie. He's a male but his story is interesting he was adopted this happens a lot where people adopt like little baby chicks because they want them to grow up and have eggs for them okay and then he so when he grew up and was a rooster the family didn't want him because he's not gonna lay eggs he's just growing and so he came to us and his they named him Debbie when he was a baby so they thought he was a girl but we kept his name because it's a good conversation starter. That's interesting what a little cutie this is this is something that really needs to be addressed when you are buying a pet or an animal that you that you intend on taking care of you have to make sure that this is you know that's something that you really want you know about the animal you know what what it needs to you know have a good life and how much time it takes to take care of it because so many this happens what every Christmas they say the worst time for the animals because they get you know given around his presence and then after a while the kids or the families realize or decide that they no longer want them so yeah definitely when when buying pets and husbands well you don't buy husbands but you want to make sure you're getting what you want. It's a lifelong commitment. That's awesome so do you how do you get the animals that are at the sanctuary now how do they end up there? Right yeah so every animal has like a different background but most of them so some of them were surrendered to us like families rescued them when they were babies and then they grew up and they didn't have the appropriate setting to help take care of them anymore or one of our cases came from like severe neglect who like she was in this home when she was just being kept in a concrete pen we'll look at her in a little bit. Awesome and tell us about their individual stories. Just like cases of neglect or abuse and then they come and then they can live out their lives the way that they should live. Yeah so awesome what you're doing. Let's have another look at this one this is a school excursion or some sort of what have you got here. This was such a fun day this is a group of the Girl Scouts this troop they actually raised money through selling Girl Scout cookies and other fundraisers and then they were able to use the money they earned to buy us like a bunch of donations and then they came and they got to meet all the animals and they helped us with a project at the sanctuary too they helped us with painting our table and planting some banana trees and learning about the land and the animals. That's so great. So how does a school let's say or a group of students how would they go about paying you guys a visit or getting in touch with you guys to do something like this or you know help out and find a way to donate what should they do. Yeah so they can go to our website and then on that website it's aloha sanctuary.org and on that website there's a contact section and that'll lead you to our email and you can just send an email to that and then it'll be one of myself or one of the other directors that will reach out to them. Awesome how does it work with having visitors do are people able to just go and visit at random or do they contact you guys before and say I'm coming to take a look or yeah how do you accept yes or take in yeah yeah public how did the public come to see you. Yeah so we do once a month visitor days right now and we actually have one coming up this Monday June 24th at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. and so the public can come and it's just donation based it's free essentially and then we will take them on like a tour and they're gonna meet the animals and you hear about the stories in the mission and then we have those every month. Awesome. Eventually we want to do them once a week. Yeah so the next one's coming up once again the dates. June 24th. June 24th okay. In a few days. Yes good luck with it I hope. Thank you. I hope yeah you get lots of nice people there and get some donations coming in. It's really fun. Yeah we will talk about donations and how you can donate later on in the show but the donations are tax deductible. Yeah so we are 501c3 federally recognized non-profit so any donation to us you can claim it on your taxes. Fantastic very important. Awesome let's have a look Jessica at another slide. That's so cute. Is this was it Hoku that you were talking about? Yes this is our first rescue Hoku. He's so precious to us. He's about okay. He's two years old and he's like 500 pounds now this photo's with our one of our directors Hannah Mizuno. Okay. He's just he's like a dog he really is and he was our first rescue too so we just got so lucky with him that he just so easy. Awesome. And he's two years old. So I hate to ask this question but what is the life span? The average lifespan of a pig. Yeah it's a good question they actually usually grow to be anywhere from 12 to 20 years old. Really? Yeah because of the way that they've been so bred over the years they develop a lot of like arthritic problems too and so their health starts declining as they get older usually and depending on how they were raised. But awesome that's that's such a lot of time to enjoy and have fun. He's adorable. So how many pigs do you have there? We have three pigs three. So Haku, Eleanor and Charlotte. Okay and what what are their ages so he's two. Haku is about two and then Eleanor is about 12 and then Charlotte is our baby pig. I think I included a photo. She's about three months old or four months now. Yeah. So what's tell us something about pigs that we don't know like I have never spent time with pigs I think they're adorable I couldn't even fathom the thought of eating them but yeah what is something that might surprise us about pigs or their personalities that we may not have heard before? Yeah I had actually never met a pig before doing this thing very there but what I was really surprised by is just how smart they are and how much like a dog they are like Haku he remembers everybody and he remembers things so well and then like Charlotte she learned how to sit and be quiet lie down they learn how to spin they learn and they learn these tricks so much faster than dogs do. Really? Yeah they're like the they're the top five most intelligent animals on the planet which is something none of us ever think about. Well yes a lot of vegans I think know that they're really intelligent intelligent animals but that's true I don't think a lot of people realize like how clever these animals are or most animals are but that's that's amazing so plenty more to talk about lots of more gorgeous photos that you've sent in Jessica so we might take a little break and then come back and talk more about the Aloha Animal Sanctuary which I'm really looking forward to hearing about so take a break for now and see you in a bit don't go away. Hi I'm Rusty Kamori host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii my show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence leadership and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business sports and life which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go Beyond the Lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Get ready for the day buddy. Hey dad. Hey dad. We have gone. What's up? We have gone. Welcome back everyone to Lillian's Vegan World where we talk about veganism and the plant-based diet. As you know I am a vegan chef, a cooking instructor and lifestyle coach and I do have some something I did want to tell you about. I was actually in Crave magazine which comes with the Star Advertiser. There's a little magazine about food, eat, drink, cook, eat, drink lots of food events that are happening in Honolulu here. So they actually did an article, a short article about me and my vegan cheeses on this came out May 22nd last month. I just want to read one paragraph to you. It says vegan eaters get nutty and cheesy. Lots of vegans are nutty aren't they but in a really cool way. Vegans are too cool to be cruel. So vegan eaters get nutty and cheesy. The realm of the non-dairy cheese can be an unsatisfying place filled with products that fail to hit the mark on taste, texture or nutritional value. But an interesting option delivers vegan flavor, versatility and healthfulness. Cashew cheese. Vegan chef Lillian Cumick will visit fish cake on Sunday to demonstrate various ways to use the tasty alternative to dairy-based cheeses. Cashews, she says, are not just vitamin and mineral rich compared to standard dairy. They're easier to digest as well. And through her preparations, Cumick proves their versatility. Now this little, it goes on and there's a photo of my cheeses, but this article that craved caused a little bit of interest. And next week on June, sorry, July 20th, sorry, June 26th, Wednesday, please do check out the Star Advertiser. You'll find the Crave magazine inside that. And I will be featured on the cover story. So this article is going to be about my vegan cashew cheeses. And I do actually, it's going to be a really awesome article with lots of my vegan cashew cheese recipes. So I do hope that you take a look at it and learn a little bit, a little bit more about me and what I do. I am actually having a vegan cheese making demo at Harbour Court in downtown Wednesday, July 3rd from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. I'll be hosting that and you can get tickets on Eventbrite. They'll be $50 per person for the three hour class. I also am doing, this is one thing that I've been doing for years now, is seven course fine dining, vegan lunches and dinners. And just to tie up the article that's going to be in Crave next week, I am also hosting one of my seven course fine dining vegan cheese dinners. Seven courses with everything that incorporates various types of vegan cheeses from soups to mains to desserts. So it's going to be this huge extravaganza of plant-based food. So if you're interested in that, you can also go to Eventbrite to get tickets. The tickets will be $90 per person. And yeah, I would love to see you at some of my events. So check out Crave. Hope that you do come and see me at one of my demos or events. Now, back to the more important thing at hand, which is the awesome Aloha Animal Sanctuary. This is Jessica Palomino, my guest today. Welcome back again. Thank you. Jessica, so great having you on and listening to what you guys are doing there. Thank you so much for that awesome work. People like myself are just, you know, we take our hats off to people like you who spend all of that time there. And the animals of course are happy and healthy and in great hands. So it's all awesome. Jessica, let's have a look at another photo that you sent in. Yeah, this was hard to look at. Yeah, I'm guessing this is before, not after. I should have captioned it before. Yeah, no, definitely before, of course. So gosh, that's heartbreaking. Tell us what happened, where they came from. Yeah, yeah, they're hard to look at. They really are. The photo on the left was Haku and he was rescued from a backyard farm out in Eveside. And I just found him through like a craigslist ad that just looked like a horse lotter. And then the photo on the right is Eleanor and she was actually not rescued directly by the sanctuary. She was rescued by somebody else and then she came to the sanctuary. They found us and then we're able to bring her to us. Hard to look at. But think about all the good Samaritans out there who are keeping their eyes opened and stuff. And there is a happy ending to this story. And you see the previous photo that we saw of Haku. Haku. Haku who just is so adorable and gorgeous and loved. So Eleanor of course as well. So yeah, it's hard to look at but that's the reality, isn't it? So Jessica, where do you recommend people go or contact if they see animals abandoned animals or animals that they might be abused or need help? Where do you recommend they go? If it's an emergency and the animal needs to be rescued right away, unfortunately like right now our sanctuary does not have the resources to accommodate that. That's our goal long term. So they should contact Humane Society, the Hawaiian Humane Society or even the police. They can direct them to animal control. But if it's like a position of persons in where they need help rehoming a pig or like a duck or something they're welcome to email the info at aloha sanctuary.org. Email that's available on our website. Just go to our website and it'll direct you. Awesome. Thank you so much for that information. Hopefully there are not animals out there that you know are in desperate need but do definitely keep your eyes out in case there are. So thank you for that. Let's have a look Jess at another one. Yeah, these are cute. Look at that child's face like he just looks like he's having the best time. Here, what? So sweet. Yeah, on the left it's more the top left and the top right photo are both of Eleanor. Sorry, Jess. Eleanor is the 12 year old. She was in the last photo we just looked at on the right side. So she's doing so much better now. And then this kid was just having so much fun meeting Charlotte, our little piglet and he just loved her. And he was fading her? Yeah, so that's what we do at our visitor days. We just really try to provide a hands-on. Yeah, as much as the animals want, if they didn't want to interact then we just let them. It's mostly about the animals but a lot of the times they want to come and play and meet everybody so that's really social. What a great point you bring up that's great to know that if they're not in the mood you don't force them to go and interact if they're not feeling it. That's great. Yeah, it's an important piece that we're not a petting zoo. We don't like definitely. Because we're here for the animals and we don't profit off of how the animals perform or anything. It's all about the animals. Of course, but you can see that the animals are happy. They're just loving all the attention and love that they're getting so it's awesome. The child that was in the photo, the little boy, did he? He was obviously a visitor. How did he end up going to this injury? He came to one of our open visitor days yeah so we have them every month right and so he just came with his family and there was a big group of kids at our last visitor day. That's awesome. We really try to gear the days towards the children because they really are the future of tomorrow. Of course, yeah definitely. Let's have a look at another one. Yeah, that's so cute. The bottom photo is Francis and Fern and you can see them grown up on the top photo too and then oh yeah Debbie again. They're just adorable. Look at them relaxing and chilling out. Yeah. I love that middle photo too. Yeah, she's doing some good stretching and it's so funny. They're the same age these two ducklings. Yeah, they somehow don't look the same age. Yeah, so beautiful. Male, male, Muscovy ducks are like three times the size of the female. Oh, interesting. So they're the same age, their brother and sister. Interesting. Let's have a look at another one. There we go. I love this picture of Haku wearing a Haku. So sweet. Haku eating watermelon, Haku eating a falafel. Yes, they're very spoiled. Is that you down in that photo? One of the co-founders, director Hannah Mizuno again. Awesome. There's the third one that I don't think I have supplied any pictures of. Aren't you Howard? She's another one. Awesome. And let's have a look at another one. Here we go. Here's the information that I'll let you talk about, Jis. Yeah, so if you want to learn more about the sanctuary, you just visit our website. The link is right there and it'll tell you more about our mission, what we do and how to make a donation. We also have our PayPal information and Venmo, which are both good to send taxable donations. Fantastic. Now, I do have to show this video that you sent because this is adorable. Let's have a look. Eleanor. Look at that little rub. Is this one of the volunteers, Jessica? Yes, this is one of our, um, dedication. He's actually one of our, like, leaders because he's there so much. So gorgeous. Yeah, and the pigs, they love belly rubs and you can see Charlotte, the little piglet, it's getting very jealous. She's like, I want a belly rub too. Oh my God, that just makes me so happy to see animals like that just, you know, that's what they should be doing. That's, it's human nature for us to, to feel, you know, that, that love. We love animals. People that meet and say they love animals. So it's just about, you know, getting that, getting them off their plates and trying to find a way to have them connect and, you know, really connect with what they honestly feel inside. Everybody knows it's wrong that, you know, what goes on and how the food gets there. But thank you so much, Jessica. I would love for you to look into the camera and say something to the viewers out there, anyone who's watching. A last message. Goodbye. Yeah. Well, thank you all for tuning in. And also, I just want you to know that if you do live on Oahu or maybe you don't live here, but you can connect to people that do care about animals and feel the same way as you. You can go on to our website and our social media and find us and we'll be a community for you too. And we can all together create a more compassionate world and support each other while we do this. So that's what I would like to say. Fantastic. Yes. Thank you so much, Jess, for coming on the show. I would love for you guys to come back in a few months time and we do an update and see how it's all going. Definitely, whoever's out there, you know, make a donation, help out the animals, the sanctuary. It's all, it's all wonderful work and it's an awesome place. So thank you so much. I'll be seeing you all in another two weeks for more of Lillian's Vegan World. Have a wonderful weekend and aloha.