Waimea Middle School students and some of the harvest from Malaai School Garden. (Photo courtesy of Malaai School Garden Program)

MEDIA RELEASE

Exceptional art objects, stellar educational experiences, baskets of fresh Waimea-grown vegetables, hand-made compost sifters and a morning-long consultation with a master gardener to overhaul your home landscape — these are among the pleasures and treasures on the auction block at the 3rd Annual Malaai School Garden Art & Sol benefit auction.

The auction is 1-3:30 p.m., on Fathers’ Day, Sunday, June 20 at Merriman’s Restaurant.

Tickets for the Malaai Art & Sol auction benefit are $50 per person and may be purchased by calling Alethea Lai at 989-7861 or at www.malaai.org

Malaai is Hawaii Island’s “model” school garden, which was first planted five years ago to grow real change for Waimea’s children and community in an outdoor living classroom.

From the very beginning, Malaai was entirely funded by generous community friends and foundations as a private not-for-profit partnership with Waimea Middle Public Conversion Charter School. Patterned after the highly regarded Edible Schoolyard in California and led by respected educator Amanda Rieux, the program integrates nutrition education and cultural and environmental stewardship with core curriculum and hands-on learning.

More than 1,000 pairs of Waimea Middle School student hands – and hundreds of community volunteers – have worked side-by-side to carve the ¾-acre organic Malaai food and flower garden out of a former Parker Ranch kikuyu grass pasture.

Students harvested more than 6,000 pounds of fresh food from Malaai during 2009 to be tasted and shared with fellow students, families and community friends.

Intended initially to help address youth nutrition issues including obesity in an age of fast food, Malaai has transformed Waimea Middle School by improving student “readiness to learn” due to improved nutrition awareness.

Also, students are learning to reflect on where their food comes from, what the ingredients are, and why and how they are connected to each other and to their environment.

Malaai also has encouraged students and families to begin to grow some of their own food in home gardens, and has helped students learn to enjoy and prepare fresh locally grown foods and to appreciate the value of paahana – hard, industrious work – when they harvest and eat the fruits of their labor.

Also, since the advent of the Malaai school garden, WMS has adopted school-wide Wellness Guidelines and now requires every student to participate in Health and Physical Education classes – something that has become rather rare today when the pressure is on to meet federally mandated No Child Left Behind academic benchmarks.

Malaai Art & Sol auction items include:

* Traditional and contemporary kapa pieces created by Marie McDonald and Roen Hufford
* A Frank McClure traditional ‘Umeke (bowl) of native hardwood
* A Kanani Kaulukukui painting
* A collector’s prized 4” Ming’s carved ivory and sterling silver shell ginger brooch
* A 4’x6’ Quilted Throw Created by Mauna Kea Quilters in memory of WMS’ beloved teacher Joann Kaida
* Stained Glass Original Pieces by Joe Rivera and Calley O’Neill
* Golf for Two at Hualalai’s Exclusive Course
* An Escorted Sunset Trip to the Top of Mauna Kea and Tour of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope with an internationally renouned astronomer including dinner for four at the mid-level visitor center
* A two-night stay at exclusive Waianuhea
* A hand-made compost sifting screen by John Dean with organic Hawaiian wool wash clothes knitted by Jan Dean plus “Filthy Farm Girl Soap”
* A Basket of Hawaiian Tea plants

Malaai aerial photograph dated December 2009. (Photo courtesy of Tom Benedict)