In the first year of the Hawaii Agricultural Foundation’s Localicious Heroes program, a handful of students from Waianae High School created short videos about 35 farmers, ranchers and value-added producers in 30 days during the summer.
Localicious Heroes partnered with Waianae High School’s Searider Productions, a multimedia program with about 250 students and four teachers, to tell these stories. That was in 2022. Three years later, the program continues to evolve.
“It actually started when we came back from Covid. We needed projects for the kids to start doing in the summer,” said John Allen III, the video adviser for Searider Productions. “It was a good reintroduction to client work for the kids coming out of Covid. ... We’ve been evolving the project ever since, every year, for the last three years.”
Localicious Heroes gives students a chance to work with people outside of the school and connect with local farmers, he said. Students also receive a stipend for their work.
“We really wanted to shine a spotlight on our local farmers and the value-added producers,” said Denise Yamaguchi, executive director of Hawaii Agricultural Foundation. “We really wanted it to come from an authentic place. We looked to some of the greatest students in the community who shined in creative media, and we chose Searider Productions. So that’s how that program came about.”
To fund the first year of the program, Hawaii Agricultural Foundation secured more than $8,000 in funding from the state Department of Agriculture’s Sponsorship Product Promotion Fund. In 2023, the project received $20,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service’s Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. The money went toward three longer videos, which featured Darryl Shinogi, executive chef of Roy’s Ko Olina using carrots grown at Kahumana Organic Farms; Christina Hee, the chef of Juicy Brew, cooking with mushrooms from Small Kine Farm; and Kealoha Domingo, the owner of Nui Kealoha, using kalo from Kakoo Oiwi. In 2024, the nonprofit secured $10,000 from the Ka Papa o Kakuhihewa Fund through the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Localicious Heroes
“We walk them through the whole contract process,” Allen said. “We talk about the deadlines and all those kinds of things. Even when things go bad — like they miss a deadline or something like that — we get to really have a heart-to-heart with them and talk about how are you going to handle your client after that?”
Localicious Heroes is a way for students to gain experience in the industry outside of the classroom during the summer, he said.“It’s more or less a job for them.”
For more information, visit hawaiiagfoundation.org.
