Project Summary: Nourishing Wellbeing: A Culinary & Agricultural Mapping Initiative for Kauaʻi

Overview & Purpose:

Nourishing Wellbeing directly links community food security with island-wide agricultural resilience. At its heart is an inclusive, pay-what-you-can soup kitchen, operated in partnership with a welcoming diverse space like Collab Cafe.

By serving nutritious meals made from locally sourced, organic ingredients, we address the critical need for fresh, affordable food access on Kauaʻi. This daily act of service has a dual purpose: as we source ingredients for our soups and breads, we will systematically map Kauaʻi's agricultural lands, water sources (wai), and distribution networks, addressing the lack of centralized data that currently hinders strategic planning for food sovereignty and disaster preparedness.

This project is designed for systemic change. Inspired by models like Aravind Eyecare Center, that provide high-quality service to all regardless of ability to pay, we will create a welcoming space where a wide range of community members can connect. By bringing diverse people together over a universally enjoyed meal, we help unlock the “frozen value” in our community networks, which helps grow our collective abundance. For example, when a taro farmer seeking funding for their new equipment shares soup & sourdough at our communal table and shares the story with a remote tech worker on their computer with funds for a small personal loan, a new economic and community connection is forged that strengthens our island's food system.

This fosters the social cohesion and collective intelligence essential for building a unified and truly resilient local food system.

Key Partners:

Within the Kalukalu at 1624 Community Hub, ‘Āina Abundance will work with these key partners.

Wai Wai Collective: - Native Hawaiian Wahine lead community hub space for soup distribution and workshops, learning events.

Collab Cafe: - Wahine lead, culinary execution, diverse network, kitchen and cafe space, and agricultural connections and mapping network.

Westside Watershed Council: - Native-Hawaiian Wahine lead, watershed mapping with each agricultural partner.

Key Activities & Outcomes

• Soup Kitchen Operations: In partnership with Collab Cafe, establish and operate a welcoming soup kitchen serving 200 meals a week. Operations will be versatile, including a simple cafe cart, take-home jarred soups, and integration with a community market (mākeke) to amplify connections between producers and consumers. We will partner with the top culinary talent and chefs across Kaua’i and Hawaii to attract the widest breadth of guests to serve soup.

• Agricultural & Water Mapping: While sourcing from local farms, our team will document key data points: farm location, crop types, acreage, water source (stream, county, catchment), and distribution capacity. This work will be coordinated in partnership with the Westside Watershed Council and our “Mapping Wellbeing” youth program, providing real-world application for their technical skills.

• The Kauaʻi Food & Water Map: Develop a comprehensive, interactive digital map visualizing the island's agricultural assets. This map in partnership with Indigenous Data Hub, will be a public resource for planners, emergency managers, farmers, and community organizations working to strengthen our local food system. When positioned near the serving station of soup, attention is brought to the map.

• Community Engagement & Policy: Wai Wai Collective will host “talk story” sessions and workshops to share findings from the map and gather community input. The data collected will be used to provide actionable recommendations for county and state plans related to agriculture, water allocation, and economic development.

Fundraising

We are currently seeking $120,000 to pilot this program. We have been invited to apply for the Collective Wellbeing Grant provided by the Robert Johnson Foundation, we have made it to the second round are working on our grant application for funds.

In addition, we are currently seeking $75,000 to support the annual operational support of ‘Āina Abundance to continue the in-kind labor we have provided so for, including: strategic work of partnership building, administration of the organization, culinary innovation and recipe generation, and continuous fundraising for projects.