HANALEI >> Poi Day lives at the intersection of industry and serenity.

Every Thursday about 40 volunteers gather at the Waipa Foundation to spend hours turning a ton of kalo — or taro — into poi. Most spend the time over buckets of water, peeling the corms for their run through a grinder.

That’s the industry. As for serenity: “This is my healing place,” said Yolanda Suliven of Kapaa, who has been a regular at Poi Day for five years. She comes as often as her work schedule allows.

Some regulars bring their children during school vacations to connect them with tradition. Others bring guests from out of town to share a special slice of island life.

They spend the morning as part of a buzzing crowd united in this very hands-on process of making food.

“I just think it’s an important way to live, the community doing things together, growing their own food and preparing it,” said Dena Taylor, visiting from Santa Cruz, Calif.

The weekly program is one of many hosted by the Waipa Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes Hawaiian culture and works to protect and perpetuate the 1,600-acre Waipa ahupuaa in North Kauai as a living learning center.

The land is owned by Kamehameha Schools and managed by the foundation. Executive Director Stacy Sproat-Beck said nearly 4,000 “lifelong learners” participate in the foundation’s cultural programs annually, and thousands more attend tours, work days, community events and farmers markets.

Waipa also maintains 21 acres of cropland, about half of that in wetland taro patches.

The Poi Day tradition began about 30 years ago as a way to give Hawaiian families in the community access to their staple food. It has grown to turn an average 2,000 pounds of taro each week into about 1,200 pounds of poi.

The taro is purchased from local farms, supplemented with that grown at Waipa, Sproat-Beck said.

Volunteers may take some poi — as a gift, as Suliven describes it. Some purchase more or choose cooked corms instead. She likes a certain variety of taro corms, which she cooks in coconut oil with salt and pepper.

The rest goes to families throughout the local community at cost, via a private distribution network, Sproat-Beck said.

The process actually begins on Wednesday nights, with the taro cooked over wood fires lit beneath 55-gallon drums.

The next day, starting at 5 a.m., the corms go into buckets of water, and the skin is removed, basically by rubbing it off by hand. “To teach people nowadays, we say it’s like texting with your thumbs,” Sproat-Beck said.

Then it’s rinsed and goes through a second cleaning, with butter knives used to remove any imperfections.

A large grinder processes the taro, first into a thick paiai and then in a second grind into smooth poi, which is packaged in 2-pound bags.

The byproducts — taro scrapings and the rinse water — go to feed pigs and are used in composting.

Poi Day ends around noon, when the volunteers and Waipa staff gather for a community lunch.

Suliven’s sisters, Diane and Christine Suliven, visiting in early June from Oahu, chose to take part in Poi Day on a rare free day.

“We wanted to get our hands back into the aina,” Christine said, “instead of going shopping.”

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