Grow Hawaiian Festival Celebrates Native Plants
Hawaiian Electric Company sponsors a free eco-festival at Bishop Museum
Bishop Museum is hosting the first Grow Hawaiian Festival to be held on Oahu, presented by Hawaiian Electric Company on April 26, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The eco-conscious festival is being held in honor of Earth Day. Admission is free. Weavers, dancers, kapa makers, and other practitioners of traditional Hawaiian culture will join biologists, conservationists, and horticulturists to share their common passion for the native and Polynesian-introduced plants of Hawaii. Festival attendees will have a unique opportunity to speak to many of the foremost practitioners of Hawaiian arts including lei makers, ipu makers, and woodworkers.
Headlining the festival will be presentations by ‘olohe lua, author, and cultural historian, Richard Likeke Paglinawan, who will discuss the plants of the ancient Hawaiian martial arts, while a roundtable of kumu hula will share personal stories and thoughts on the plants used in hula. Staff from the native plant nursery Hui Ku Maoli Ola will talk about how to choose and properly care for Hawaiian plants. Representatives from Kaala Farm will be on hand demonstrating kalo pounding and kapa making.
The Grow Hawaiian Festival provides an extraordinary opportunity for people to ask experts for advice on all manner of things biological or horticultural. Attendees can bring their unknown plants to the festival to get them identified.
The festival will also feature informational booths on local conservation and sustainability efforts, a guided tour of Bishop Museum’s garden of native and indigenous plants, and a native plants sale.
The Hawaiian music trio Pilioha and hula dancers will entertain festival attendees. Refreshments will be available for purchase from local food vendors.
Hawaiian Electric Company will give away reusable grocery bags to the first 100 families or individuals who attend the festival and, while supplies last, to those who pledge to conserve electricity.
For more information about Hawaiian Electric Company Presents: Grow Hawaiian Festival at Bishop Museum, call (808) 847-3511 or visit www.bishopmuseum.org.
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