For most of my life, I have been surrounded by strong women. My mom had me at seventeen and was a fearless single mom that worked a union labor job while raising me in the inner city of Cleveland. My tough, funny, rebel-rousing, Okinawan grandmother was also in my life, but far from the home that she knew. I later raised my daughter as a single dad on the Island of Lānaʻi. She is now a woman herself at eighteen.  As a Maui County Councilmember and chair of the Affordable Housing (AH) Committee, I have now surrounded myself with strong women in my legislative office. The powerhouse known a ..read more

Have you ever searched the internet to find a great deal for a local business, maybe a fitness or prenatal yoga studio, how about a special promotion for a family photoshoot, plate lunch, or spa discount? I know I have! I was always searching online and when I would find a business I was looking for, I would notice I just missed a special they were running or that they’re not running any specials at this time and it would be more than I could or wanted to spend.  As a mama of a little one, I find I’m always searching for some type of class, local business, or service and always in search ..read more

For generations, Maui has been a beautiful, but expensive place to live, especially if you have keiki. Although many parents have decided to make sacrifices so that their children can grow up here, overtourism and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in record increases in housing costs that have made it more difficult to survive here. The nature of the visitor industry is that it brings people here to experience one of the nicest places on earth. Many of these visitors have the means to buy homes, and they are driving up the cost of housing. The number of millionaires in the world reac ..read more

Get the Drift and Bag It! is an annual cleanup campaign hosted by Mālama Maui Nui in partnership with the Ocean Conservancy. This community event seeks to empower Maui Nui residents in their environmental stewardship of our island and this year will take place from September 1 – September 18. To participate in this campaign, community members and partners can register for an Individual/Solo or Quaranteam cleanup at MMNui.org/Cleanups.  Team Leaders choose the location, create a disposal plan, and contribute data, while Mālama Maui Nui will provide all the tools and support needed to make ..read more

On the afternoon of December 3rd at 40 weeks and 3 days pregnant I was resting my huge, tired body when my 3-year-old came in with flowers. I was so touched, I got up and reached for them and as I did – SPLASH – my waters opened! I felt my heart skip a beat and the hair on the back of my neck stand up. After weeks of feeling that “any-moment-now” feeling, it was finally happening! I stuffed some cloth diapers in my panties and cleaned up the wet mess on the floor. The air was ripe with excitement as Pat bustled around to make sure everything was ready and I talked to Malu about what was happen ..read more

I began the Feeding Hawai’i Project in the spring of 2020, realizing how vital food security is in these times. I began interviewing stakeholders across Hawai’i’s food system to document their challenges and pivots due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Some things haven’t changed since then; we’re still importing 85-90% of our food, resulting in limited emergency supplies, development on farmlands, and societal disconnect from our food system. Recently, an official said, “COVID shows us how connected we are,” regarding community transmission of the virus. In parallel, my interviews show how our ..read more

Healing ~ Help yourself ~ Love yourself ~ Heal thyself.  Balance and Grounding. Let’s talk about Nausea during pregnancy. How to reduce and avoid it, healing and helping yourself. A little background – half of pregnancies have some nausea during the 6th to 16th week. It occurs from the increase of your Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) hormone, fatigue, or high stress. I want to stress you don’t have to put up with nausea, that a woman’s experience of nausea (morning sickness) varies as much as their experience of labor, and there is no normal to compare with. In my professional opinion ..read more

I know, I know, TEN YEARS! Can that be right?! For those of you who just had babies when the first issue came out – your little ones are approaching, if not already in middle school! I have no idea where the time has gone, although parenting is a great time suck, especially in the beginning, so I guess it went there. Don’t get me wrong though, there is nothing better I’d rather do with my time than give my boys my all.  Speaking of giving it my all, The Mauimama has pretty much been a one-woman team, although it could not have reached this milestone without the support of the community sp ..read more

When positioned in the most geographically isolated place on Earth, one becomes attuned to factors that may threaten a cutoff to Hawai’i’s current lifelines: Shipping for our basic needs and Tourism as the current economic driver. The proverbial “What are we going to do when the boats stop coming?” was a common talk story growing up, especially come Hurricane Season (which we are in by the way, be prepared).  Yet it seems that Hawai’i State leadership feels more confident in supporting import-based, oil-supported economics than answering the big question we need to address, the elephant i ..read more

Do you remember the lockdown that began in March 2020? The recollections of everyone who experienced this event on Maui will forever be ingrained in our collective memory.  Whoever imagined that during our lifetime we would experience a global health pandemic that impacted each and every aspect of life as we knew it? The restrictions and closures forced us all to become that much more resourceful and savvy as the daily routines we took for granted were upended and disrupted.  One of the many compelling life-during-lockdown stories emerged at the Huntley family’s Sew Special store. As ..read more