Although there is no Kokua Festival this year, we wanted to offer you the opportunity to purchase past Kokua Festival gear to sport for Earth Day. Throughout the entire month of April get 20% off ALL Kokua Festival merchandise. Sale ends April 30, so don’t miss out!
Governor Neil Abercrombie recently toured Sunset Beach Elementary School to learn more about the successes of school, parent, and community supported ‘AINA In Schools initiatives. Hosted by SBES students, the Governor met the parent volunteers preparing an Aina Kine healthy snack, delivered the apple banana snack to a class of third graders, and toured the school garden and orchard. Fifth graders who were participating in an ‘AINA IS garden lesson prepared fresh butter flavored with garden-grown herbs and served a sample to the Governor on locally made flax crackers.
The Governor was very impressed with the school’s food and sustainability education initiatives and in his weekly address to the state, he said “We need to do this in EVERY school!” He commended the students for their work, saying,“I am going to remember you folks as pioneers.”
To see more photos from Governor Abercrombie’s visit to SBES, click here.
Kokua Festival t-shirts refashioned into grocery bags / Jack concert shirts refashioned into skirts by Jenny Allen of Madrone Regenerated Clothing.
With Earth Day right around the corner we want to see how you can put the 3R’s to the test. Create your best designs for a refashioned T-shirt, or any Jack Johnson or Kokua Festival merch item, and use something “old” to make something “new”! Turn your old concert shirt into a skirt, or patchwork quilt, or maybe your favorite hoody becomes a tote bag. The creative part is up to you.
Here’s how the contest works: Submit a photo of your Jack Johnson or Kokua Festival 3R’s ReFashioned garment via Jack Johnson’s Facebook Page and be entered to win a prize.
Top 10 Creative Designs will:
One Grand Prize Winner will win the ultimate 3R’s package with a Jack Johnson autographed poster and merchandise pack complete with a reusable water bottle and tote bag.
The contest starts, April 1st, 2011 and ends on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2011. Winners will be announced in Jack’s May newsletter. Good luck designers…now get to work!
Kokua Hawai’i Foundation was proud to be a sponsor of the 5th International Marine Debris Conference (5IMDC) in Honolulu from March 20 - 25. Kokua staff, Jack Johnson, and Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye joined over 450 ocean minded educators, explorers, and experts from all parts of the world in Waikiki to share strategies and best practices in assessing, reducing, and preventing the impacts of marine debris.
Student videos from Huliau Foundation and Sunset Beach Elementary School were featured during 5IMDC Movie Night. These student filmmakers were rewarded with a day at Coconut Island, a marine research facility on Oahu.
40 student leaders from 10 Hawaii schools and three islands participated in the Student Ambassador Workshop during the conference hosted by Kokua Hawaii Foundation. These students had an educational day filled with hands-on activities, guest speakers, learning opportunities, art and exhibit galleries. The students were able to gain knowledge, feel inspired, and share in an opportunity that made them recognize their own importance in the issue of marine debris.
On display at 5IMDC were the finalists from the “Plastic Free Hawaii” Kokua Calendar art contest. Nearly 700 submissions were received and were narrowed down to 27 finalists. Conference participants were able to vote for their favorite. The display will also be featured at the Punahou School Sustainability Fair on April 21 where over 3,700 attendees will also have the opportunity to vote for the cover winner.
One 11th grade student, Kylie Courtney of Punahou School, said this about her experience at the workshop, “What I loved most about it was the emphasis it put on the fact that a single person can make a difference. If one person stopped buying plastic water bottles everyday and instead drank from a reusable one, that’s 365 bottles in a year. That’s 1,825 bottles in five years and 3,650 bottles in ten years. Those are all the bottles not tossed in the ocean by a single person making a simple choice, the choice of a cleaner, more beautiful future.” Kylie continued, “It’s not just for the next generation or the one after that. It is for all the generations that come after us. The earth is not passed down through the hands of our ancestors, but is borrowed from the hands of our children. Now it is my turn, my generation’s turn, to continue this work.”
At the closing ceremonies, Jack shared the stage with Kylie Courtney and a group of 4th grade Student Ambassadors from Jefferson Elementary School who cheered their new Plastic Free Schools slogan, “Be Fantastic, Don’t Use Plastic!” giving us all a tip on what we can do to prevent marine debris.
The perfect capstone to 5IMDC was a beach clean-up on Saturday, March 26th! Over 100 volunteers helped to clean up Kahuku Beach on Oahu’s North Shore. An estimated 1.6 tons of marine debris was removed in just 2 hours. This debris was then sorted, counted and catalogued. It was an awesome effort hosted by Kahuku High School’s AVID Club, BYUH Sustainability Club, Tangora Blue, Sustainable Coastlines, Waitemata Harbor Clean Up Trust and Kokua Hawaii Foundation.
Kahuku High School’s AVID Club will continue it’s 3R’s Awareness Campaign with these events:
The Marine Debris Awareness Student Art Project Display is an initiative by Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawai`i (B.E.A.C.H.) engaging K-12 students in learning about the impacts of marine debris. Students created paintings and drawings to bring awareness to these issues in the community. Art is on display at the Hawai`i State Capitol, now through April 28. Entry is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit the B.E.A.C.H. website or call (808) 393 2168.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Marine Debris Program would like to know how marine debris impacts you and what you are doing about it. The winning artwork will be showcased in a 2012 calendar that will help in raising awareness about the global problem of marine debris. Additionally, the winners will be featured on the Program’s website and in their newsletter, reaching over 200,000 people each month! Open to students grades K-8. Entries must be postmarked by April 16th. Click here for more information and to download the application.
Salad Bars: Waikiki Elementary was recently granted a complete set of salad bar equipment from the Whole Foods Market & Chef Ann Cooper’s Great American Salad Bar Project. The school is currently raising funds to add fresh, local produce to the school’s lunch menu. ‘Aikahi, Sunset Beach, and Wai’alae Elementary Schools currently run salad bars that range from once per week to daily. For more information on ‘AINA In Schools and how to get involved, email us.
Fresh Choice Hawaiian Harvest Snacks: Five ‘AINA schools took part in the pilot phase of the Fresh Choice Hawaiian Harvest snack program in March. A grant from the Kaiser Permanente Foundation funded the purchase of the food and ‘AINA staff prepared educational materials to accompany each snack. The fresh locally grown foods that students tasted and learned about during the program are: papaya, apple banana, grape tomato, and pineapple. We are currently developing a Fresh Choice Hawaiian Harvest toolkit that will be made available to schools participating in the federally funded Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Program, as well as to those utilizing private funds for their snack programs.
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