Funds sought to document students’ taro challenge

Three Kamehameha Schools high school seniors will embark on a 90-day challenge next month to incorporate kalo, or taro, into their three daily meals, and their efforts will be turned into a documentary film if they can raise the $77,000 it will take to produce the film.

"I Am Haloa" will follow Lahela Paresa, La’ahiahoaalohaokekaimalie Kekahuna and Taylor Anne Meali’i Fitzsimmons as they cultivate, harvest and eat kalo. The teens will replace all starches in their diet, including rice, bread and potatoes, with kalo. Chef Lee Anne Wong will be providing them with kalo recipes.

Funding for the film is being raised on Kickstarter, where the public can make donations.

The challenge was the brainchild of Paresa, president of Kamehameha’s Ku’i Club, where members learn to cultivate and pound kalo.

The teen anticipates the challenge will cultivate "more respect for the food we’re eating as well as the land it’s grown on" and promote not just poi consumption, but "a healthier lifestyle tied to our heritage and the way our ancestors ate — and look at what they could accomplish."

Paresa said when she joined the club last year, she found she was "more positive and more awake." The results, she says, extended beyond the physical into the spiritual.

"In this challenge I want to explore the concept of ‘you are what you eat,’" she said. "When you’re feeding your body food from Hawaii, you’re also feeding yourself as a Hawaiian person."

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For more information about the documentary, visit iamhaloa.org.