Ka Makani Kaili Koa

06/19/2026

Ka Makani Kaili Koa is honored to have earned the 2026 Candid Platinum Seal of Transparency, the highest level of recognition awarded by Candid This distinction reflects our commitment to accountability, cultural stewardship, community service, and measurable impact. By sharing our goals, strategies, governance, and outcomes, we demonstrate our dedication to serving Hawaiʻi through culture, language, history, youth mentorship, and educational advancement. Mahalo to our supporters, partners, volunteers, and communities who make this work possible.

06/18/2026

🍬🌺 KMKK AMAZON AFFILIATE FUNDRAISER POST 🌺🍬
Support our STREAMY Under the Helmet Program - Mākua Hoʻokipa — One Sweet Local Snack at a Time! 🤙🏽💛🍋✨

Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa is featuring Hawaii Candy Factory Noms Gushers, Da Pouch Li Hing & Lemon Peel Bursts as part of our Amazon affiliate fundraising efforts for the Mākua Hoʻokipa Program. 🍭🍬🍋🌶️🤤

Mākua Hoʻokipa helps KMKK create welcoming, caring, family-centered spaces where keiki, mākua, kūpuna, and community members can gather, learn, support one another, and feel at home. 🏠👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🌈🌺🫶🏽✨

This local-style treat brings that familiar Hawaiʻi flavor we love: sweet, sour, salty, li hing, lemon-peel goodness while supporting KMKK’s mission of cultural preservation, STREAMY education, and community care. 🍋🍬🌺📚🎮🔬🎨🛠️💛

🍋🍬🛒 Order here:
https://amzn.to/3QcB8Zb

✨ Every click, every share, and every qualifying purchase helps us mālama our keiki, uplift our ʻohana, and strengthen our community through the spirit of hoʻokipa. 🌺🤙🏽🏠🫶🏽💛

Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa may earn from qualifying purchases made through this link, at no additional cost to you. 🛒✨

Mahalo nui for supporting KMKK and Mākua Hoʻokipa! 🌺💛🤙🏽🍬🍋🏠🌈✨

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Experience a true taste of Hawaii with NOMS Li Hing Lemon Peel Bursts, handcrafted by the Hawaii Candy Factory. These soft, chewy fruit gummies are coated in Hawaii’s iconic Li Hing Mui powder and blended with zesty lemon peel, creating the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salty, and tangy flavors....

06/06/2026

🌺✨ ʻAumākua Messages of Aloha for Veterans ✨🌺
🇺🇸🪖 A Mākua Hoʻokipa / Under the Helmet STREAMY Project of Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa 🪖🇺🇸

Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa is honored to share a new civic grant proposal being developed through our Mākua Hoʻokipa program: ʻAumākua Messages of Aloha for Veterans. 🌈🤝🏽💌

This project is being proposed through Vibrant Hawaiʻi’s KōCreate Civic Grants to support students of Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole Elementary School in Pāpaʻikou, Hawaiʻi Island. 🏫🌴 Through this project, students will receive Native Hawaiian ʻAumākua-themed notecards and use them to write encouraging messages, mahalo notes, drawings, and words of aloha for patients and kūpuna veterans at Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home. 💌✍🏽🌺🇺🇸

The timing centers on Veterans Day 2026 🇺🇸🕊️, creating a meaningful opportunity for keiki to honor kūpuna veterans through intergenerational learning, cultural reflection, writing, and service. 👧🏽👦🏽🤲🏽👵🏽👴🏽

The ʻAumākua card theme was chosen intentionally. 🐢🦈🦉🌊 In Native Hawaiian understanding, ʻaumākua remind us of guidance, protection, remembrance, family connection, and kuleana across generations. This project invites keiki to reflect on those values while offering aloha to veterans who have served their communities and country. 🌺🪶🤎

This kuleana of honoring veterans is deeply connected to KMKK’s ongoing community relationships. 🇺🇸🤝🏽 Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa maintains a partnership with VFW Auxiliary 10276 through its annual JROTC scholarship program. Members of KMKK’s Board of Directors and our partner organization, Project K4, are also members of, and past and present officers of, VFW Auxiliary 10276. Through these relationships, our commitment to honoring veterans is not just symbolic; it is part of our lived service, civic responsibility, and continuing kuleana. 🪖🎖️📚🌱

This effort will be completed under the direction of Mākua Hoʻokipa Co-Program Director Rian Kahalewai, with support from a volunteer resident of Pāpaʻikou. 🌴🤲🏽💛

💛✨ But we believe this idea can grow. ✨💛

While the initial grant request is small, our larger vision is to expand this project beyond Hawaiʻi Island to reach schools, veterans' homes, kūpuna care facilities, and community partners across the pae ʻāina, including Oʻahu, where Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa is based. 🌺🏝️📍

With additional community donations, we can provide more Native Hawaiian-themed notecards, envelopes, classroom supplies, delivery support, and coordination to help more students send messages of aloha to veterans and kūpuna throughout Hawaiʻi. 💌📦🖍️✍🏽

🌱 Your donation can help us: 🌱

✨ Expand the project to additional schools 🏫
✨ Reach more veterans and kūpuna care homes 🇺🇸👵🏽👴🏽
✨ Provide culturally grounded notecards and supplies 💌🌺
✨ Support student writing, service, and civic engagement ✍🏽🤝🏽
✨ Strengthen intergenerational connection across islands 🏝️👧🏽👴🏽
✨ Grow Mākua Hoʻokipa as a community care STREAMY program 🌱💛

STREAMY stands for Sciences, Technologies, Reading, Research, Remuneration, Engineering, Electronics, Arts, ʻĀina, Mathematics, Mele, Moʻomeheu, and You. 📚🔬💻🎨🌱🎶

Through our Under the Helmet STREAMY programs, KMKK helps keiki and communities look deeper into everyday activities and discover lessons in culture, creativity, identity, service, and kuleana. 🪖✨🌺

Even a small gift can help place a message of aloha into the hands of a veteran or kūpuna who may need encouragement, remembrance, and connection. 💌🤲🏽🇺🇸

🌺 We also encourage other residents, families, schools, and community groups to apply for the KōCreate Civic Grants and bring your own community-led ideas to life. 🌺

Learn more and use this grant idea as inspiration here:
bit.ly/civicgrants

🌺 Please consider donating, sharing, or helping us identify schools, veterans' homes, care facilities, JROTC programs, and community partners who may want to participate. 🙏🏽💛

Together, we can help keiki honor kūpuna, lift up our veterans, and carry aloha across generations. 👧🏽👦🏽👵🏽👴🏽🇺🇸🌺

Mahalo nui for supporting Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa, Mākua Hoʻokipa, and our continuing kuleana to honor those who served. 🤲🏽🌺🪖

Please click the link to complete this form.

05/21/2026

Kumu and Mama Geri has arrived at our vendor booth for !! Come visit us at the SISTER SUMMIT at the Coral Ballroom of . Learn about our programs that ranges from Hawai'i culture, indigenous games, RC Drift School and our Lego fave Na Mea Ho'ohui!! Come visit us anytime today until 4pm!! We'll see you there!

05/21/2026

Project K4 will be reppin' at the Sister Summit (A Japan-Hawaii Project) . Come visit us! Mahalo to for the invite!!

05/05/2026

✨🇲🇽🪶🌺Today, on Cinco de Mayo, Ka Makani Kaili Koa pauses not for commercialization, but for remembrance, respect, resilience, and Indigenous solidarity. 🌺🪶🇲🇽✨

Cinco de Mayo honors the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, when Mexican forces defeated French imperial forces in a moment remembered for courage, unity, and resistance. ⚔️🛡️🔥 It is not Mexican Independence Day, which is observed on September 16, but rather a historically specific commemoration of resistance to foreign intervention.¹ ²

🧡🪘💃🏽🥁🌿🌽As a Native Hawaiian cultural education organization, KMKK recognizes this day through an Indigenous lens: honoring the strength of Mexican, Mexica Nahua, Chicano, Indigenous, Black, Brown, and allied communities whose cultural practices, languages, dances, songs, foods, and ancestral teachings continue to survive despite colonization, displacement, and erasure. 🌽🌿🥁💃🏽🪘🧡

🤲🏽🔥🌱This recognition is especially meaningful as we prepare to welcome our relatives from **Indigenous Roots** next weekend. 🌈🪶🌺 Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center is dedicated to building, supporting, and cultivating opportunities for Brown, Black, Native, and Indigenous peoples through cultural arts, creative expression, and activism.³ Their work also includes preserving and promoting Mexica Nahua Indigenous arts and traditions, while supporting holistic wellness, cultural resilience, and community care.⁴ 🌱🔥🤲🏽

🤝🏽🌊💃🏽🥁🍲🫶🏽Their visit to Hawaiʻi reminds us that Indigenous solidarity is not symbolic alone. It is practiced through showing up, listening, feeding, dancing, healing, organizing, and helping one another carry the weight. 🫶🏽🍲🥁💃🏽🌊🤝🏽

🌎🪶🌺🌊🐢From Puebla to Hawaiʻi, from Turtle Island to Moananuiākea, we honor the people who protect culture, defend community, and answer the call when relatives are in need. 🐢🌊🌺🪶🌎

Hoʻokahi ka umauma, hoʻokahi ka puʻuwai.
One chest, one heart. 💛❤️‍🔥🌈

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🌊
🤲🏽
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🤝🏽

Footnotes / References

¹ Encyclopedia Britannica, "Cinco de Mayo," noting that Cinco de Mayo marks the Mexican army's victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, and is often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day. ([Encyclopedia Britannica][1])

² Library of Congress, "The Roots of Cinco de Mayo: The Battle of Puebla," explaining that French forces heading toward Mexico City were stopped at Puebla on May 5, 1862, by Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. ([The Library of Congress][2])

³ Indigenous Roots Cultural Center, "Our Roots," describing its mission to build, support, and cultivate opportunities for Brown, Black, Native, and Indigenous peoples through cultural arts, creative expression, and activism. ([Indigenous Roots][3])

⁴ Indigenous Roots, homepage description of its Mexica Nahua Indigenous arts programming, Eagle and Condor Native Wellness Center, and community-based cultural resilience work. ([Indigenous Roots][4])

[1]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cinco-de-Mayo?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Cinco de Mayo | Meaning, History, Food, Traditions, & Facts"
[2]: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/05/the-roots-of-cinco-de-mayo-the-battle-of-puebla/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "The Roots of Cinco de Mayo: The Battle of Puebla | Timeless"
[3]: https://indigenous-roots.org/our-roots-1?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Our Roots"
[4]: https://indigenous-roots.org/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Indigenous Roots"

05/05/2026

❤️🪶 WEAR RED ON MAY 5TH 🪶❤️
Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Awareness Day
Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women, Girls & Māhū 🌺🕯️

Ka Makani Kāʻili Koa stands in aloha, remembrance, and solidarity with Indigenous families, survivors, advocates, and communities who continue to seek truth, justice, safety, and healing. ❤️‍🩹✊🏽🪶

In Hawaiʻi, May 5th carries a deeply local kuleana. Violence against Indigenous women, girls, māhū, and Two-Spirit relatives does not happen in isolation. It is connected to generations of colonization, displacement, cultural disruption, economic inequality, gender-based violence, trafficking, underreporting, and systems that too often fail to see, count, protect, or seek justice for Indigenous lives. 🌊🌺🕯️

For Kānaka ʻŌiwi, this crisis is not invisible to our families. It is invisible only when institutions fail to look. Hawaiʻi’s Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force reported that Native Hawaiian women and girls experience violence at rates disproportionate to their population size, while limited and incomplete data continue to hide the true scope of the crisis.¹ The Task Force also describes MMNHWG as an “invisible crisis” because Native Hawaiians are too often not fully recognized as the Indigenous people of Hawaiʻi in public systems, data, policy, and prevention efforts.²

Today, we wear red to remember those whose lives were taken, to pray for those who have not come home, and to stand beside the families who continue to carry the burden of demanding answers. ❤️👕🧣🙏🏽

Red is more than a color. ❤️
It is remembrance. 🕯️
It is resistance. ✊🏽
It is a prayer. 🙏🏽
It is a call to action. 📣
It is our kuleana to protect the living. 🌺🪶

KMKK encourages our ʻohana, volunteers, partners, and community to:

❤️ Wear red
🕯️ Share awareness
🪶 Support Indigenous-led advocacy
🌺 Listen to Native families and survivors
📣 Speak their names with care and dignity
🙏🏽 Remember the missing
🕊️ Honor the murdered
✊🏽 Protect the living

To our Indigenous relatives across Turtle Island, throughout Oceania, and here in Hawaiʻi: we see you, we hear you, we remember with you, and we stand with you. ❤️🪶🌺🕯️

❤️🪶🕯️🌺✊🏽

Footnotes / References
¹ Nikki Cristobal, Holoi ā nalo Wāhine ʻŌiwi: Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force Report (Part 1), Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Hawaiʻi State Commission on the Status of Women, 2022. The report states that Native Hawaiian women and girls experience disproportionate violence and that available data likely undercounts the true scope of the crisis.
² The Task Force report describes MMNHWG as an “invisible crisis” because of lack of recognition, incomplete data, and insufficient government attention to Native Hawaiian women and girls.

05/01/2026

We send our aloha and congratulations to the Chief Operations Officer & Senior Cultural Advisor, Kumu Moʻomeheu, of Ka Makani Kaʻili Koa.
Tomorrow, she concludes her reign as the 2025 City & County of Honolulu Lei Day Court 1st Princess.
Mahalo for serving as an Ambassador of Honolulu through your dedication to community, Hawaiian culture, hula, and, of course, lei making. Your grace and integrity have shined throughout this journey as you built relationships across Hawaiʻi and stood proudly as a steward of your identity as Kanaka Maoli.
E hoʻomaikaʻi iā ʻoe on a beautiful and meaningful year!
Join Kumu Pualeilani and her Lei Day Court tomorrow at Kapiʻolani Park as they pass the crown to the new Lei Day Court.
Ke aloha nui, e Kumu Pualeilani Kamahoahoa!

04/28/2026

Lights, camera, action… with that unmistakable Tokyo Drift energy carrying us through Day One of Kawaii Kon 2026! 🎬🏁🚗💨✨

Mahalo nui loa to our incredible RC Drift School volunteer crew for showing up, setting up, tuning cars, guiding new drivers, managing the track, answering questions, encouraging keiki and families, and keeping the good vibes rolling all day long. What looks like play is really patience, teaching, safety, teamwork, and a whole lot of aloha in motion.

From first-time drivers gripping the controller with nervous excitement, to seasoned drifters sliding clean through the corners, today reminded us why RC Drift School matters. It creates a safe, fun, educational alternative to full-size street drifting and gives our community a place to learn control, respect, focus, engineering, electronics, and creativity through KMKK’s STREAMY framework.

To every volunteer who gave their time, energy, batteries, tools, vehicles, encouragement, and heart — mahalo. You are the reason the track comes alive. 🖤💛

Cheers to the end of an amazing first day at Kawaii Kon 2026. One day down, two more to drift. 🏁🔥

STREAMY VolunteerPowered DriftWithAloha SafeDrifting CommunityInMotion

04/26/2026

🏁 Day 2 at Kawaii Kon 2026: the long haul, the big smiles, and the drift addiction is REAL. 🚗💨✨

Aloha from Ka Makani Kaili Koa and Project K4's RC Drift School at Kawaii Kon 2026!

Saturday is officially the longest day of the three-day convention, and our RC Drift School track has been running with that full anime-con-meets-Tokyo-Drift energy since Friday. 🎬🏎️💨

Since opening day, over 100 drivers have come through to try their hand at RC drifting. Some came curious. Some came nervous. Some came just to watch. And then just like that, the RC drift bug got them. 😄

That is how community grows: one lap, one turn, one wall tap, one “wait, can I try again?” at a time.

Today’s photos showcase exactly what RC Drift School is all about:** our instructors sharing the hobby, the sport, and the sciences behind drifting, teaching new drivers how throttle control, steering angle, traction, momentum, weight transfer, engineering, electronics, and patience all come together in one smooth slide. 🔧⚙️📐🚗💨

Through RC Drift School, we are not just showing people a hobby; we are helping build Hawaiʻi’s RC drifting community, welcoming brand-new hobbyists, and creating a safe, scaled, skill-building pathway into the world of motorsports, engineering, tuning, design, and automotive culture.

And one of the most exciting things we saw today?
A strong and promising showing of interested female drivers stepping up to the controller. 👏🏽💖🏁

Girls, young women, māhū, wahine, and friends from across the full spectrum: if you have ever been curious about cars, drifting, racing, mechanics, design, electronics, or the automotive world, RC Drift School is for you, too. You do not have to “already know cars.” You do not have to come in with experience. You just have to be curious enough to pick up the controller and try.

Today, we also want to introduce everyone to Emily, the creation of RockBait Racing entrepreneur and RC Drift School instructor Leo Moran, and a perfect embodiment of what RC Drift School hopes to grow: more female presence, more creativity, more confidence, and more opportunity in automotive spaces. 💅🏽🔧🚘✨

Emily represents the future we are building toward: a future where girls and women see themselves not only behind the wheel, but also behind the build, the tune, the design, the business, the engineering, and the leadership of motorsport culture.

As a STREAMY program of Ka Makani Kaili Koa’s Under the Helmet Initiative, integrating Sciences, Technologies, Reading, Research, Remuneration, Engineering, Electronics, Arts, ʻĀina, Mathematics, Mele, Moʻomeheu, and You RC Drift School uses the fun of drifting to open real doors into learning, confidence, and career imagination.

So come through. Ask questions. Take a lap. Bring your curiosity. Bring your cosplay. Bring your inner future driver, engineer, tuner, designer, or racing entrepreneur.

Because once you try RC drifting…
You might just find out this is not only a hobby.

It is a sport.
It is a community.
It is a pathway.
And yes, it is absolutely addictive. 🏁🔥

Mahalo to every driver, volunteer, instructor, parent, cosplayer, and curious passerby who helped make Day 2 unforgettable.

RC Drift School is still open at Kawaii Kon 2026. Come find us and take your turn on the track! 🚗💨✨