Papakōlea Kitchen Blessing

Posted on Sep 13, 2011 in Department of Hawaiian Home Lands

Hawaiian Home Lands Trust Chief of Staff Waiʻaleʻale Sarsona, left, tours the new Papakōlea community kitchen, today, following the blessing. - Photo: Ilihia Gionson

“Papakōlea has a long history of a presence of families who can cook, who cater parties,” said Aunty Puni Kekauoha. “But they always had a hard time finding a commercial kitchen.”

That search now becomes a little easier with the Sept. 13 blessing of the new Papakōlea Commercial Kitchen, nestled in the community center of the Honolulu hillside homestead. The kitchen has been a dream of the Papakōlea Community Development Corporation – the non-profit of which Kekauoha is the Executive Director – for over a decade.

The new kitchen will be available to food service and food manufacturing entrepreneurs hailing from Papakōlea, create service-learning opportunities for youth with a window to sell snacks to community center goers, and support the non-profit’s operation of the Papakōlea Community Center and Park.

The Kahiau Foundation – founded by a former Makiki resident who befriended many kūpuna in Papakōlea – provided a grant to design and build the $298,000 kitchen. Further in-kind donations were provided by the contractors working on the project.

Referring to a list of projects generated by a community visioning process conducted in 1997, Kekauoha says, “completion of the commercial kitchen finishes Papakōlea’s wish list.”

A dedication and pāʻina – to which the community is invited – will be held on Saturday, October 8, 2011 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

– By T. Ilihia Gionson