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Volunteers guide Kalihi garden's rebirth
By Heidi Bornhorst
There are many magical places in our islands. One such magical garden space that has been given new life, thanks to the efforts of concerned community members, is the Lo'i Kalo Mini-Park garden in Kalihi.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
At the end of tiny Lo'i Kalo Place on the makai side of North School Street in Kalihi, across from Native Books, this garden has a spring and was a famous taro patch in the old days.
Darryn Ng, vice president of the Na Hoaloha O Ka Lo'i Kalo neighborhood organization in Kalihi, and Michael Leong, a social and community worker with the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center, helped clean up this spring-fed park in Kalihi, which was once an eyesore filled with drug users.
The rebirth of the once-fallen garden is a story of potential fulfilled.
In the 1970s, it was a botanical garden, part of the islandwide Honolulu Botanical Gardens system, and it featured many varieties of kalo, or taro. Polynesian-introduced plants and native Hawaiian plants grew there. Amazingly, the well-built lo'i walls were still intact from the old days. The spring still bubbled, nourishing the kalo and other wetland plants.
Sadly, the park sat in a troubled neighborhood. People would drink and smash bottles on the boulders in the lo'i. Glue-sniffers hung out in the bathroom. Families and children didn't like to go there. Plants were smashed or stolen. It was eventually returned to the city to be used as a small park.
Recently, Michael Leong, a social worker and community worker who is with the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center, invited me to come and see the transformation of the garden.
The children's center adopted the park in 1996 to spearhead community cleanup efforts. Care of the park was transferred to Na Hoaloha O Ka Lo'i Kalo (the Friends of Lo'i Kalo) in September 1999. Na Hoaloha is a hui of community volunteers, headed by neighbors Edgar Akina and Darryn Ng.
The list of community "partners" who take care of the park is long: They include City Councilman Jon Yoshimura, Neighborhood Board #15 Chairman Bernie Young, and the Department of Education Honolulu District Kupuna program. Also involved are the United Puerto Rican Association, Koboji Shingon Mission, Kalihi Super Stop and Deli, Ka Lahui Hawai'i, Kalihi YMCA, Ka'ala Farms and the University of Hawai'i-Manoa Gear-Up program. The Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center also remains involved.
They do a lot of hard work to keep the park beautiful.
The community also has established a community policing and neighborhood security watch to keep the criminal element in check.
Na Hoaloha O Ka Lo'i Kalo, a group of volunteers, conducts cleanups at the Lo'i Kalo Mini-Park in Kalihi on the last Saturday of each month. To help, call Michael Leong at 847-7991.
Yet Akina remains concerned. "We know that it's important to malama the city and county's efforts to maintain Lo'i Kalo Mini Park. Manpower and funds are becoming less and less. That's why Na Hoaloha and its partners will continue to kokua for the good of all."
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People and organizations have approached from all over to take advantage of the park's riches as well as maintain its beauty.
Second-graders and their teachers from Kapalama Elementary School visit the park throughout the school year to help keep it clean and learn about the trees and plants.
Fern Elementary fourth-graders and teachers occasionally hold a culture fair at the park. Kupuna and makua from the Honolulu District Kupuna program give presentations to the children about native Hawaiian plants. Kalihi YMCA teenage girls learn about the fine art of kapa making from Ka'ala Farms instructors Eric Enos and Delani Kauihou.
Local and Mainland college students, and Americorps members from Arizona to New York, have come to help. Hawaiian charter schools have begun holding classes there. The Lanakila Senior Center and Lanakila Seniors Hawaiian Club are the newest additions to the list of partners. City parks crews work with the community to help maintain the garden. Inmates who volunteer from O'ahu Community Correctional Facility help cut back the aggressive, alien California grass.
The old, vandalized and abandoned park restrooms, once scheduled for demolition, were removed in 1999. In their place stands a beautiful open-air pavilion, often used as a halau, or school.
Na Hoaloha sees this as a place for schools and groups to meet and learn, reflect and take in the beauty and tranquility of this "oasis in the city."
The pavilion is a testament to financial support from the city and work by the unions and business in the Kalihi area.
As we entered the park, I was overjoyed to see many plants from our old botanical garden days. I learned to use a pick properly back in 1976 when we were planting a lot of choice native plants at the park.
Majestic trees such as hala, 'ulu, niu, milo, kamani and wauke tower over several pohaku, or stones, that had been arranged in a semi-circle for purposes lost over the passage of time. Kukui and noni trees grow along the stream.
