Fruitstand Menu

Storytelling: Introductions

Meet the owners: Gather Core & Onomea Country Market

Aloha, my name is Chase Mawae. I’m from the ahupuaʻa of Manana on Oʻahu and live in Hilo. I’m a music lover, a father, and lover of my culture. One story I’d like to share is how I started getting interested in learning about my Hawaiian culture/history. When I would hear my hometown band, Kapu System, sing about historical events in Hawaiʻi and when I saw videos like Haunani-Kay Trask chanting “We are not American”, it made me want to dig deeper into what they were talking about. I started researching on my own, watching old documentaries, and asking my kanaka maoli family questions. Now I strive to connect to ʻĀina in a modern world and raise my daughter to be more connected than I was growing up.

Aloha, my name is Cora. I’m from Las Vegas and Washington and have lived in Hilo and Hāmākua since 2018. I’m an artist, gardener, aspiring writer, and aunty. I’m passionate about food sovereignty, family, community, and ecology.

Growing up at the edge of a city in the middle of a desert, I didn’t know people who grew their own food or had gardens. There wasn’t fruit trees or education on harvesting food plants. Looking back on the people around me, there wasn’t an interest or it wasn’t apart of the lifestyle to grow plants for any reason other than landscaping aesthetics. Which is an art, but I knew there was more - I just didn’t yet have the language for it. I just had a feeling. I spent summers at my grandparent’s house in rural Canada. They had a big, colorful garden full of food and some of my favorite memories are afternoons scraping my arms on raspberry thorns to pick as many as I could. Eating them along the way, my skin and clothes were stained berry red. My brothers, cousins, and I would squish them between our fingers until we had containers of mush for my Grandma to make jam. These experiences solidified in me the potency of this kind of connection with food, even if I didn’t know what it meant. Then we’d go back home to grocery store food, made with love by my parents. I’m infinitely grateful for the food security I had, but there’s something missing when we don’t consider where our food comes from; when we’re hardly apart of the process of it getting to our kitchens. In 2014, they bought a plant nursery in Washington and we made the big move. I worked at the nursery in high school and my love for plants flourished. In the summers they set up their fruit stand and sell produce from farms all over the Pacific Northwest. We learned about the agricultural industry, and the positives and negatives of the conventional agriculture that is often the source of our food.

Now in Hawaiʻi, I’ve been privileged as a settler to have experiences growing food and learning from my teachers, friends, and people in the community. Learning about native plants, Hawaiian food systems, cultural practices and ways of being, ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, and activism as a lifestyle - has given language to The Feeling I grew up having but couldn’t name. I started connecting with my own ancestry. I started understanding the disconnect between people and the source of our food, both where I’m from and in Hawaiʻi where the majority of food is imported. However we see that changing because of the deep connection Kanaka Maoli have to native foods and ʻĀina. Learning the history of this place; how the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and continued occupation by the United States has devastatingly impacted the current food system and every leaf in the weave of Hawaiʻi Nei - should be life changing for anyone here. It’s also life changing and healing to witness the work people are doing to attain food sovereignty, cultivate community, and huli the system. I’m excited for them to share their stories with us. Part of storytelling is connection which can lead to more community care/resource sharing/mutual aid networks.

Do you or someone you know have a story you want to tell? Email us at [email protected]

This newsletter is the beginning of a project that I’ve been dreaming about for years; with storytelling as the roots. I hadn’t planned on owning a store so soon until the opportunity arose to run Onomea Country Market, and so arose the opportunity to start off the project, Gather Core, in the form of an email newsletter and tie it into the work we’re doing at the store.

Our intention and focus is place based storytelling. We aim to offer a space where stories and resources are shared, people and the work they do is uplifted, and readers stay updated on happenings at our store, at Onomea Hub, and in the community.

We are not fluent in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i nor are we experts in tracking the moon phases. We are learning and centering Hawaiian ways of being in our lives. Traditionally, kaulana mahina differs depending where in the pae ‘āina you are. We kilo in Pepe‘ekeo and Onomea, Hawai‘i Island. While we primarily rely on our visual observations, some digital kaulana mahina resources we reference are: Ka Mahina Project, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, Prince Kuhio Hawaiian Civic Club, Moon Phase Calendar & Compass App, and Mahina App.

Maker Spotlight: The Lei Bar

The Lei Bar is a Hawaiian owned lei company that offers workshops and small batch custom lei. They use all seasonal, Hawaii grown materials in their lei and arrangements to honor the traditional and sustainable ways of working with the natural world. They have rooted themselves here at the Onomea Hub for the New Lunar New Year and finally are open for business! Check out their website for upcoming events and workshops.

theleibar.com 

instagram.com/theleibar

Song of the Anahulu

Photo of the Anahulu

Community Happenings

huiMAU is hiring a Malama ʻĀina Technician. Join their ʻĀina Restoration Crew. Find them online at alaulili.com/employment and instagram.com/huimau_ohana