Normally “Buy Local” focuses on one Hawaii company that makes a product or products in Hawaii, but this time it’s about a Hawaii company, soon to expand to the mainland, that helps organizations raise funds by selling mostly made-in-Hawaii food favorites made by a range of companies.

Kala Kokua LLC, literally “money help” in Hawaiian, was established in 2005 by partners familiar with the great fundraising needs of local organizations.

If your kid’s baseball team gets selected to go to the mainland to compete, “that’s easily $1,800” that needs to be raised, said Rod Suzu­moto, who established the company with partners Yukio Yukawa and Joann Perreira Machi­gu­chi.

He’s a been-there, done-that parent of kids involved in athletics and the de rigueur fundraising that goes along with such endeavors, and he and his partners — all of whom have day jobs — have a passion for, and an understanding of, how to help groups succeed.

The business model also helps local companies by getting their products into local hands — and tummies — also while helping Hawaii’s youth sports teams, hula halau and other organizations get what they need, to get where they need to go.

Kala Kokua works with many food purveyors, and the ones that produce made-in-Hawaii food products include Hawaii Food Products, makers of Ono Ono Brand foods; Redondo’s, famous for its Portuguese sausage, pipi­kaula and, lest we forget, Pupu Pups (old-timers will hear the late Ted Sax, a longtime Hawaii broadcaster, saying that in their heads); as well as with HPC Foods, maker of Taro Brand food products.

Kala Kokua works with each to create value-added packaging, unavailable in retail stores, to enhance fundraising opportunities, Suzu­moto said.

Hawaii Food Products, for example, puts together exclusive packs for Kala Kokua including the popular Pau Hana Packs and Pupu Packs.

Of the latter, he said, “basically you have it in the freezer,” and when friends come over to socialize, “you pull that out and microwave it” and have roast pork, char siu and Portuguese sausage to offer your guests alongside whatever refreshing beverages you might also offer them.

Redondo’s makes twin-packs of king-size, 12-ounce Portuguese sausages for Kala Kokua clients.

Other fundraising choices include 14 ounces of Char Siu Pork; 20-ounce three-packs of Pork Lau Lau with butterfish; 16-ounce packs of smoked meat; 12.5-ounce twin packs of Pork Pasteles, to save you the trouble of finding and grating green bananas and all that other laborious effort, as well as other choices.

All meat products are fully cooked and frozen solid to help ensure food safety during the pickup process, which Kala Kokua helps organizations plan.

Beyond made-in-Hawaii food products, other popular food items produced on the mainland, such as smoked turkey drumsticks, also are available.

Something not frozen but definitely packaged for, and popular with Kala Kokua clients, is Hawaii’s Original Taro Pancake Mix, which also can be used to make all kinds of goodies. Andagi and crepes, for example!

“We wanted to make a special package,” said Craig Tottori, president of Taro Brand parent company HPC Foods Ltd.

The mix sells at retail for about $6.29 for a 20-ounce package, so the $10, 32-ounce bag “was made just for them, for the fundraising price point and an attractive amount of product,” Tottori said.

The taro pancake mix “using poi … is of course deeply rooted in the Hawaiian culture and deeply rooted in Hawaii,” he said. “As a locally based company … and in this economy, we all need to work together and share our strength. You can’t do it all by yourself; you’ve really got to pull together,” Tottori said.

While the taro pancake mix is more expensive than, say, a box of Bisquick, you won’t find taro in the Bisquick box.

“The poi and taro give it a good texture. It’s a unique product, a premium pancake mix,” which comes with some recipes on the packaging. There are additional recipes on the company’s website, but an upgrade is in the works.

“We’re putting together more recipes,” and those will be on the revamped website when it goes live, Tottori said.

Kala Kokua welcomes inquiries from all islands. It has fundraising coordinators on Kauai and Hawaii island, and by September, local products will get even further distribution into expat and other eager hands and tummies when Kala Kokua expands to the Los Angeles area.

“There’s a lof of halau” that have expressed interest in fundraising using Kala Kokua, he said.

Suzumoto and his partners see a market for taking “the Hawaii fundraising concept to the West Coast, given all the expats not just there, but all the way up into the Pacific Northwest,” he said.

Groups keep $3.50 of each $10 product sold, and while Kala Kokua offers free printing of fundraising tickets, simple order forms have become increasingly popular “because you don’t want to have unsold tickets floating around … and getting redeemed,” Suzu­moto said.

Besides, you can email-blast the order form to aunties, uncles, cousins and the like, for free.

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.