project leader
Christian W
location
P.O. Box 311
(Ko'olauloa District, Oahu, Hawaii)
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the project

Youth Entrepreneur Success (YES) Education proposes to implement a food security system that will decrease the amount of farmland needed to supply food for one person for one year from 1.5 acres down to 4 sq. ft. and will also decrease the needed irrigation water from tens of thousands of gallons per year down to 360 gallons per year. Imagine the impact this organic food production system would have scaled up for 7.8 billion people in our struggling environment. 

Due to tourism and its remote location, the island of Oahu is one of the most unsustainable places in the world.  It’s the ideal place and time to start preserving our land and water, our two most precious resources. The central core of our plan is the use of Garden Towers in family yards or on apartment patios, or in a room that receives no sunlight at all. The Garden Tower also has a self-contained composting system using worms which creates vermicast.

The mission of the Garden Tower Project is to provide a superior portable, non-GMO & heirloom supporting, gardening ecosystem. ”The Garden Tower is a revolutionary self-contained garden/composting system with the potential to transform home gardening, urban gardening, and world hunger programs”. Our team is passionate about healthy food for everyone. Hippocrates once stated, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” We would like the produce to replace one meal a day, thus saving about $6 in food costs and providing enough mineral, nutrients and vitamins for one day to survive.
 

the steps

  1. Order 3 garden tower systems.  8/1/2020
  2. Grow 210 heirloom plants from seedling trays. 8/1/2020
  3. Insert composted soil mixed with perlite into each of the garden towers. 8/15/2020
  4. Insert red wiggler composting worms into each of the garden towers to create vermicast. 8/15/2020
  5. Transplant the 210 seedlings into the 3 garden towers. 8/15/2020
  6. Connect the 3 towers to a timed, filtered drip irrigation system.. 8/15/2020
  7. Insert a combination pH, light intensity, and moisture sensor in one of the gardens.. 8/15/2020
  8. Build a 8’ x 18’ tiny home/office/kitchen on a used single axle trailer. . 8/15/2020-9/1/2020
  9. Insert the 3 garden towers inside the office. 9/1/2020
  10. Attach vertical gardens on the sides of the tiny home/office/kitchen. 9/1/2020
  11. Have the Kahuku High and Intermediate School’s Career and Technical Education’s Building and Construction students study the dimensions and structure of the building and have them design interior components and have them design further improvements or future adaptations.
  12. Have them help install the solar panels, inverter, charge controller and batteries. 9/30/2020
  13. We will be installing a donated refrigerator, table, chair, food processor and blender to make juices and smoothies from the produce from the garden towers.
  14. Try to grow the following in your garden tower (especially perennials): 
    1. After dying (moringa, noni, ko’oko’olau, mikaki) leaves, boil them, collect the tea.
    2. Put other herbs leaves and vegetables from the garden towers (ginger, spinach, watercress, carrots, cilantro, turmeric, microgreens, tomatoes, basic, sweet peppers, Swiss chard, lettuce, bok choy, breadfruit, broccoli, carrot, taro, etc.) in an Omega food processor. Add herbal tea to the juice. Add any other vegetable leftovers.
    3. Collect other fruits and vegetables, leftovers (acai, acerola, almond butter, aloe vera, apple cider vinegar, ashwagandha, B3 capsules, baby spinach, bananas, bioastin, spirulina, black cherry, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, chia seeds, chocolate banana protein drink, chocolate protein drink, cinnamon, coconut water, collards, concord grape juice, cranberry juice, dragon fruit, elderberry extract, eggs, ginger, grapefruit juice, guava nectar, hemp seeds, ionic drops, jelly, kale, kalo, kiwi fruit, lime, mango, microgreens, noni, onions, orange, organic apples, organic honey, papaya, passion fruit, peach, peanut butter, pear, peppermint, pineapple chunks, plum, passion fruit, pomegranate, pomplamoose, popolo fruits, potato, soursop, pure cacao or cocoa powder, strawberries, sugar-free ice cream, sweet potato, tonic water, vital reds, yogurt). Quinine from tonic water allows the body’s cells to absorb vitamins and builds the immune system. Add any other fruit leftovers from your refrigerator or freezer.
    4. Pour the green juice and smoothies into recyclable 16oz single serving glass bottles and refrigerate. Do this to discourage you from buying expensive single serving bottles at the store.
  15. Have the students help with the finishing work of the tiny office once student improvements have been selected. 10/30/2020
  16. Have the students help showcase the tiny office/trailer/kitchen/garden towers at 5 elementary schools, Kahuku High and Intermediate School, and the Hawaii State Farm Fair at Kualoa, O’ahu, Hawaii.  Complete visits by end of school year 6/1/2021

why we're doing it

We believe in doing everything we can as a sustainable and responsible effort to help those most in need. We are working towards a more resilient and sustainable economic future for individuals, families and communities. We believe that Garden Towers can play a major role in this worthy effort.  Garden Towers create the easy availability of fresh, organic food to populations who lack either the access, or the ability to grow their own food. The primary objectives of this project is to make food security possible through water and conservation with innovative, collaborative, and affordable methods. We also plan to compare soil garden towers with hydroponic, aquaponic and fogponic towers.

Imagine the possibility of witnessing families in the underserved Ko’olauloa district growing and processing their own food in an organic Garden Tower in their own yard, instead of waiting for food in a long line of cars hoping for an unsustainable and unhealthy food handouts from a donor food preparer that has been previously condemned by the Hawaii Department of Health for food safety concerns.  Initiating the responsibility of food security is up to each individual or family, and teaching young people at school is a great place and time to start, and it is long overdue.

With our partnership and role with local, state and national supporters, hundreds of high school students, and others, will have an excellent opportunity of transforming a unsustainable food security system into a successful model for the entire world to use to not only survive, but thrive. We believe that our young people deserve the best nutrition and pitching in during COVID-19 will help us build momentum to create a solution to end hunger and malnutrition in our communities.

We are putting garden towers in the tiny home on a trailer so we can take the entire system to the 5 feeder elementary schools in Ko’olauloa:  Ka’a’awa, Hau’ula, Laie, Kahuku, Sunset Beach.  We will visit Kahuku High and Intermediate School several times since the CTE Building and Construction classes will be using 3D drawing software (SketchUp Pro) to design further improvements to it.

 

budget

3 Garden Tower Bundles (each have enough space for 70 plants) costs $600 each, free shipping.  $1,800

Model food security Tiny Home/Office built on a used trailer  $4,000 Used to showcase food security growing systems, vertical gardening, sustainable living model.

Solar panels and battery to power office. $900

Includes heirloom seedlings, composting worms, water meters, moisture indicators, caster wheel kits, plant food, heat mat, and more.

PROJECT FUNDING NEEDED =    $6,700
ioby Platform Fee     $35
"ioby Donation Processing Fee (3%)  $208
TOTAL TO RAISE =    $6,943
Please note: ioby fees are estimated and will be calculated based on totals at the end of the campaign.    

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