Photos: UH Hilo’s Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center hosts Māla Day for Earth Day

Students who attended Māla Day participated in hands-on, culturally relevant work and experienced giving back to the earth.

Two students in the mala gathering ti leaves.
Two UH Hilo students with harvested ti leaves from Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center’s māla (garden), on Māla Day, April 21, 2023. (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

By Evangeline Lemieux.

The University of Hawai‘i at Hilo’s Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center hosted a community garden day April 21. Māla Day (Garden Day) was in honor of Earth Day, and students were invited to help rehabilitate and care for the gardens around Kīpuka.

There was a variety of activities including harvesting, raking leaves, pruning plants, pulling weeds, and building rock walls for raised beds. Students who attended had the chance to participate in hands-on, culturally relevant work and to experience giving back to the earth.

The work celebrated Hawaiian cultural contributions to and methods of conservation and stewardship. All activities had some cultural component, and students were educated on the cultural aspects of the work as they participated.

Malu Dudoit pictured
Malu Dudoit (File photo)

Malu Dudoit, Uluākea facilitator at Kīpuka, coordinated Māla Day. The Uluākea program seeks to transform UH Hilo into a Hawaiian place of learning, and Dudoit develops and coordinates activities for UH Hilo and Hawaiʻi Community College administrators, faculty, staff and students, such as cultural training, workshops and activities, to achieve that aim. He also develops cultural sources such as the garden. He explains the cultural importance of the name Kīpuka and the garden’s relevance to that.

“A kīpuka in the natural environment is a little piece of land that’s surrounded or covered by lava, and there’s just one piece of land not affected by lava where the flora and fauna will go to as a refuge spot,” says Dudoit. “When the lava cools [the kīpuka] becomes the new first forest for the forest to grow and rejuvenate and continue. I wanted to repurpose our space trying to mimic that same reasoning.”


Malu Dudoit talks in front of a poster board
Malu Dudoit, facilitator at UH Hilo’s Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center, briefs everyone on the work ahead for Māla Day, April 21, 2023. (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Anuhea Smith holds a few rocks from the mala. She wears a t-shirt and her hands are gloved.
Anuhea Smith (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Anuhea Smith, a student peer mentor with the center who helped facilitate the rock wall building activity, has a similar perspective.

“Our hope is that we’re like a little green safe haven for people on campus, and we want to reflect that on the outside and in our garden area, our māla, so we’re getting rocks from under the buildings and using them to build pā pōhaku, stone walls so we can plant plants inside,” she says. “Earth Day is a reminder of the responsibility we all have to our ʻāina [land], and to give back, because nature is the most divine source and we are so lucky to be a part of it.”


Five people build a rock wall to enclose a garden.
Participants in Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center’s Māla Day on April 21, 2023, build pā pōhaku (stone walls) to enclose future gardens. (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

‘Iliahi Tancayo poses for photo with a flower over her left ear.
‘Iliahi Tancayo (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Peer mentor ‘Iliahi Tancayo speaks to the vision for the work day and the value of the different activities.

“The vision for this day is to give back to all of the spaces our organization takes care of,” she says about Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center. “By splitting up [the work] we wanted to give students ideas of different ways to give back to the earth, not simply by being sustainable or going through the recycling or upcycle aspect, but also to turn your hands to the ground and actually participate in the earth, like the actual earth.”

Tancayo notes the cultural significance of the event as well, saying, “As far as upkeeping a māla, or garden space, or even building rock walls for the fish pond, it was all just a genius type of work, so if we could expose people to that, that would help to continue what our kupuna had done.”

Kilipohe Ventura poses for photo with big smile and a shaka. In the background are two people harvesting ti leaves.
Kilipohe Ventura (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Peer mentor Kilipohe Ventura led an activity harvesting endemic pōpolo berries, a medicinal plant used in lā‘au lapa‘au traditional medicine. “The plant can be used as a laxative, you can eat this and some pa‘akai [salt] and it will flush you out.”

With regard to the importance of Earth Day, Ventura says, “I think Earth Day should be every day, because the earth takes care of us and we need to mālama [take care of] it as well. I think some people forget that Earth Day is every day, and I think announcing to everybody that it’s Earth Day is just a great reminder.”

For Ventura, the cultural significance of the day is intertwined with themes of collaborating with the earth instead of working against it. “If you’re building a rock wall and the rock doesn’t fit the puka [hole] you’re trying to fill, you’re not going to shave the rock, you’re going to find a rock that fits because there’s always going to be that one rock that can fill that spot,” she says, adding, “It’s so easy to disconnect and just being in the māla, getting your hands dirty, is a great way to reconnect.”


Small black berried in a bucket. On the side is a garden glove.
Pōpolo berries harvested from Kīpuka’s mala. (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Ho‘oli Cui-Yockeman stands next to foliage and raked leaves.
Ho‘oli Cui-Yockeman (Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

Peer mentor Ho‘oli Cui-Yockeman led a group in cleaning up the area around Kīpuka’s tall ‘ulu tree.

“We’re celebrating La Honua [Earth Day] and giving back to our Kīpuka garden, or school garden, and cleaning this area because these are the resources we use throughout the year. The lāʻī (ti), we use it to make lei, and we’re clearing under the ‘ulu tree so it can thrive, because this is another resource that we have here, that we use,” she says.

For Cui-Yockeman, Earth Day is about getting back to the land.

“It’s really important to me because it keeps me grounded. I ‘ōlelo [Hawai‘i, speak Native Hawaiian], and getting back to the land is really important because it helps me ‘ōlelo. There’s an ‘ōlelo no‘eau [proverb], he ali‘i ka ‘āina, he kauwā ke kanaka, it means the land is the chief and the commoners are its servants. I think it puts into perspective that if we continue to serve the land it will continue to serve us.”


Ho‘oli Cui-Yockeman with rakes up leaves. An ulu tress is in the background.
Ho‘oli Cui-Yockeman rakes up leaves near a tall ‘ulu tree. “We’re clearing under the ‘ulu tree so it can thrive because this is another resource that we use,” she says. Māla Day, April 21, 2023 Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center, UH Hilo.(Cooper Lund/UH Hilo Stories)

The author of this story, Evangeline Lemieux, is double majoring in English and medical anthropology at UH Hilo.

Photographer Cooper Lund is a marine science major.

Share this story