Common Ground Collective

☀️ This summer, Common Ground Collective had the privilege of partnering with Upward Bound Summer Academy .bound.maui to share our mission and challenge students to think creatively about sustainability and food waste. 🌱

We presented them with a design challenge, asking how we can inspire our community to reduce food waste, donate surplus produce, and learn more about Hawaiʻi’s incredible local foods.

Today, the students presented their prototypes, and we were so impressed! They designed an informational fruit stand that would provide donated produce boxes filled with unique Hawaiʻi-grown fruits and vegetables, along with recipe cards, nutritional facts, and simple ways to use unfamiliar produce. They also came up with some value added products like lemonade and freeze dried fruits that could be used with the excess fruit.

Their idea highlights an important reality. So much amazing produce grown on our islands goes unused simply because people don’t know what it is, how to cook with it, or how nutritious it can be. By making local food more approachable, they found a thoughtful way to promote food sustainability, reduce waste, and strengthen our connection to the abundance of our ʻāina. 🌺

🤙 Mahalo to Upward Bound for including us in this inspiring experience. We are so proud of these students and can’t wait to see the impact they’ll continue to make in our community! 💚

🪏 Team CGC had tons of fun hosting MEO students for a hands-on garden workshop today! We had a few stations to participate in, from learning how to harvest bananas & use the stalks for garden beds & mulch, to a self-guided plant observation exercise, to learning how we grow kalo in the CGC Community Garden Haiku House Maui , today was a good days. Mahalo, MEO Youth Services for joining us today! See you next time. 🙌🪏🌱

📢 The CGC June Newsletter is live & in your inbox! 💃🏾🕺

📢 Check it out to learn about our upcoming Food Forest Workshop on July 12th, about the budding minds at Upward Bound Maui's Summer Academy, some awesome photos from our June A Ho`olawa Kine A Day event with Friends of Twin Falls, and more! 💃🏾 https://www.commongroundcollective.com/so/bcPxsqMk2?languageTag=en