When Lehia Apana and Brad Bayless started Polipoli Farms in 2019, they didn’t think they would open their land up to tourists. Until recently, the couple invited only school groups and students to their farm in Waiehu, Maui.
But once they saw the value of working with students, Apana said they realized that they wanted to share their stories and moolelo (history) with more people.
Now, the husband and wife are preparing to launch farm tours next year with help from the Kaiaulu Ho‘okipa Impact Studio program. The new initiative, launched in October by the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association and travel2change, helps local organizations host more authentic experiences for visitors and residents, and builds on the state’s shift toward “regenerative tourism,” where visitors give back to the communities they visit.
“When I thought about tourism and how it relates to the farm, I thought of all of the negatives, and that closed my mind to the positives,” Apana said. “Once we got out of our own heads, we realized that this is an opportunity to share the lessons and joys that we’ve had.
“I see what we’re doing as not your typical tourism.”
Polipoli Farms was among 29 local nonprofits and community groups that participated in the program’s first cohort, which wrapped up last month. Participants received six free weeks of virtual training, which included workshops on culture, business and entrepreneurial development, said Malia Sanders, executive director of NaHHA, a nonprofit that promotes the development and advancement of Native Hawaiians in the visitor industry.
The goal, Sanders said, was to help prepare them to launch their own experiences and activities for kamaaina and visitors. She pointed out it was the first time some of the participants were able to explore regenerative tourism ideas. Others were already doing community work but didn’t have the resources to launch programs on their own, she said.
“It’s not just for the visitors. It’s about being a contributing member of your community and being a part of what it takes so your community is thriving, healthy and successful,” she said. “If we want to put malama into action, here are 29 examples of how community members can make a difference in the places they are. If this is what we expect from our guests, we have to do it ourselves.”
As part of the program, cohort members will be featured on travel2change’s website and booking platform in April. Mondy Jamshidi-Kent, executive director of travel2change, said the goal is to increase the participants’ visibility while also helping them with marketing and offering other support.
Sanders and Jamshidi- Kent said they hope to continue the program in the future, as long as they’re able to secure funding.
“It’s a tough thing, that connection point between the visitor industry and culture,” said Jamshidi-Kent, whose Hawaii-based nonprofit helps to connect visitors with local community groups hosting experiences. “It’s really a coming together of the industry and saying, hey, we hear you community, and we want to support our practitioners and stewards of our aina from the ground up to see Hawaii into the future.”
Pauline Sato, executive and program director of the Malama Learning Center, a Kapolei-based nonprofit that promotes sustainable living through art, culture and conservation programs, said she joined the program because regenerative tourism is an idea her staff has been considering for a while.
It was an opportunity to learn more about what it takes to host these kinds of visitor experiences, she said. As a nonprofit, hosting tourism activities also would help them to generate more income, Sato added.
Although Malama Learning Center is still in the early stages of developing a program, Sato said they needed the help and support, particularly when it comes to the business side of things.
For Miki‘ala Lidstone, executive director of the Ulu A‘e Learning Center, the training was a way to evaluate its existing operations and improve them. Since 2006, the nonprofit, which offers cultural and place-based educational programs, has hosted community workdays in Kapolei for a mixture of visitors and locals.
But one of the best parts of the program, she said, was interacting with other participants and learning from them. Lidstone said she also hopes that being featured on the travel2change website will help to garner more interest in their workdays.
“Anytime you see the word cohort, it’s exciting. It creates a new network with new connections, partnerships and possibilities,” she said. “When it comes to our workdays, that’s the one thing we appreciate the most, the connection with the volunteers. The volunteers who aren’t from here have so much appreciation, and they want to hear more stories, and we love to share that. For our places to be resilient, we have to keep coming back to them.”
For Apana, she said what helped cement their decision to open Polipoli Farms, which grows native Hawaiian and Polynesian crops by using traditional and modern practices, was seeing the outpouring of community support when recent storms devastated their farm.
She said the community stepped up to help, even NaHHA and travel2change, which added a donation page to its website. Apana said they want to be part of that sense of community and continue to give back.
“If something’s not right, you’re not going to fix it by sitting on the sidelines and complaining about it,” she said. “We hope to be part of the solution of creating more authentic experiences and supporting better visitor experiences.”
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Jayna Omaye covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
