Youth Farm In Hawaii Is Growing Food And Leaders
The program practices tough love — Hawaiians call it kuleana, or a sense of personal responsibility. Kids commit to more than two years of work, and get free college tuition for their "sweat equity."
A tight circle of teenagers is deep in conversation — not about movies or apps, but about ... vegetables.
It's 7 a.m. at MA'O Organic Farms, part of 24 acres nestled in an emerald mountain-ringed valley just two miles from Oahu's west shore. Under a hot sun that bathes this idyllic breadbasket, college-aged farmers harvest tons of mangoes, bananas, mizuna (mustard greens) and taro every month for the island of Oahu.
The farm's atmosphere bubbles with enthusiastic lightheartedness, its college interns quipping across the rows that they can beat their neighbors' harvesting speed. But a calm falls over the group as they move from joking around to talking more seriously. A circle forms under an open pavilion, and a young woman
