Aloha

I live on the Big Island of Hawaii with my wife and two kids, right next to where the last eruption happened. In fact, three places we previously rented over the years are now under 30’ of lava rock. Over 800 homes were wiped out in a relatively small community.

We bought our land about a year prior to rivers of lava flowing past us to the sea. The humble little home I am still building myself was spared, but it looked like we lived next to Mordor for a while. A line of black and red clouds glowed ominously, day and night, for months along our northern border. I knew about this area’s history of volcanic activity and moved here anyway, so I wondered about my sanity for a while.

The eruption ended at last, changing everything, but leaving us still in paradise. Now I spend most of my time overwhelmed with gratitude.

Adversity is a great teacher. During the long months of the eruption, our community pulled together in ways no-one would have imagined. Even the Red Cross could not match the diversity of services and assistance the community organized on its own.

Having witnessed the tremendous power of our community even under terrible circumstances, I’m convinced that we can do more now that we have learned some valuable lessons about our own potential.

The pandemic wiped out the last vestiges of tourism, but that has only galvanized us on a broader scale, making the connections we had formed in response to the eruption even stronger.

I’m also convinced that changes are coming, and at least those of us in isolated Hawaii need to be ready to adapt. This is hopefully one way to provide some food security for our community. Hawaii currently imports about 85% of its food. Empty places on store shelves of major chains speak volumes about the fragility of our food supply.

Food prices, always high, have soared. We have a very large percentage of the population using EBT SNAP. Luckily, benefits in Hawaii are a little higher, but no where near the actual spread between prices here and the mainland.

I want to make it possible for individual growers to accept SNAP. They are already able to do this at farmer’s market’s by using market tokens, but I want them to be able to accept a local currency at homes as well, 24/7.

I have some thoughts about how to accomplish this and I have spoken with local EBT administrators. They like the idea.

Ironically, food is always rotting on the ground somewhere. The big island alone once supported a Hawaiian population of several hundred thousand, using only 18th century technology!

We just need to build community, to organize, to plan how to share… the food is already growing and we already have an Aloha spirit. Like the rest of the world, we are facing choices about what kind of community we will be now.

I look forward to learning from everyone here. Perhaps, with the benefit of your wisdom, we can cause an eruption of community engagement.