Honolulu lifeguard Joey Cadiz is on a mission to improve nutrition

By Kristen Consillio

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — What started as a way to feed needy people during the pandemic has become a passion for an Oahu lifeguard and former UH football player.

Joey Cadiz — known as Joey Aloha — is expanding his mission of restoring the health of Hawaii’s people.

Tackling 13 acres of overgrown grass and weeds that have taken over what once was a fertile kalo farm seems almost impossible.

“It is a little overwhelming,” he said.

But Cadiz is on a mission.

Here in Waialua Cadiz has a big job ahead of him to restore this land back into a place of traditional farming. But he says he’s driven by aloha for the ‘aina and for his community.

“Every time I come and I’m able to make a little bit of a dent here and I have volunteers and friends and family that have come and cut grass and started this mission with me, it’s really nice that we have the camaraderie of everybody coming together for the same cause,” Cadiz said.

And that cause is kalo — and helping to restore the health of the community he loves with laulau, a traditional dish made of meat or fish cooked in lu’au leaves.

Cadiz runs Laulau Solutions, a nonprofit he started during the pandemic to provide healthy meals to people in need, giving away almost 10,000 laulau across Oahu.

< Joey Cadiz (Clip 126, 33-46) "We wanted to make sure that anybody and anybody that was in need, could come and access it and that's the same with growing your own food and having your farms is being able to access these points, which seems to be so far out of reach." >

Cadiz took over the lease to the former kalo farm that’s been neglected in recent years — with a goal of using the land to educate people and further his mission to improve nutrition.

“With the aloha of one person it spread throughout all of Oahu,” said Waialua resident Napua Casson-Fisher. “And we hope that this project and the mission of Laulau Solutions can continue on. The restoration of this lo’i is going to take a lot of labor of love.”

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