The Kai ʻĀina Foundation keeps Hawaiian food knowledge in use: how to grow, catch, cook, and share food from this land, passed on by the people who practice it.
Most of what Hawaiʻi eats today is shipped in, and the knowledge of how to grow and cook from this land is held by fewer people each generation. The Foundation puts people back on the land, in the kitchen, and alongside cultural practitioners, so that knowledge stays in use instead of in memory.
Kai ʻĀina sea & land
Kai is the sea. ʻĀina is the land, and it comes from ʻai, “to eat”: the land is what feeds us. Together they describe the whole of a place, from the uplands down to the reef, and everything in between that sustains the people who live there. Caring for all of it, mountain to sea, is the work the Foundation is named for.
The Kai ʻĀina Foundation
501(c)(3) status pending.
Mission
To keep Hawaiian food knowledge alive and practiced — growing, cooking, and sharing it on the land it comes from.
Vision
A Hawaiʻi where kalo, ʻulu, and the island’s fish feed island families first; where young people from these islands see a future in farming and cooking here at home; and where visitors leave knowing the land and culture that fed them.
What we’re building toward
Leadership
Founded by Chef Kaimana “Kai” Barros, raised on the paniolo ranch lands of Waimea, and guided by cultural director Hiʻilani Shibata.
Kaimana “Chef Kai” Barros
Founder
For Kai, cooking has always been about the people around the table. He grew up in Waimea, where food was how families looked after each other, and much of his career has been spent close to the people who grow it. He has worked on farms across the island, worked with the ʻUlu Cooperative to bring breadfruit back to island tables, and cooked farm to table at Sweet Cane Cafe in Hilo. He also served on the board of the Surfrider Foundation’s Hilo Chapter, caring for the coastlines that feed us.
Today he still cooks that way: at the farmers market, in hands-on classes where he teaches people to make poke, and on his farm in Hāmākua, where he wants more people to get their hands in the soil. He started the Foundation so that young people here have the chance to learn to grow and cook from this land, and to see a future in doing it at home.
Hiʻilani Shibata
Director of Cultural Programs
Born and raised in Hilo. Hiʻilani holds a BA in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and has spent more than twenty years teaching, in and out of the classroom. She is lead cultural trainer for the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, co-founder of Ka Mahina Project, and a practitioner of lomilomi. She guides the cultural side of everything the Foundation does.
Get involved
We’re looking for partners, growers, practitioners, and supporters who want to help build these programs. Reach out and tell us how you’d like to be part of it.
Email the Foundation