Staff
Jeannette Soon-Ludes
Executive Director
Jeannette Soon-Ludes, PhD, was born on Oʻahu and raised in Koʻolaupoko where she developed a deep love for the lands and waters of her ancestors. With their guidance, Jeannette navigated college education abroad and eventually found her way back home. Today, Kalōpā, Hāmākua is the ʻāina that she strives to nurture and, in turn, the ʻāina that will sustain her descendants to come. Her ʻohana is in the midst of a four-acre pasture to food forest conversion project that incorporates native and introduced fruit and nut trees alongside endemic plants who have long called Hāmākua their home.
Jeannette comes to Mālaʻai with professional experience at the intersections of equity, education, and agriculture. To this role, she brings a passion for “big picture” strategizing, a nerdy obsession with logic models, and a bubbly enthusiasm to grow Mālaʻai in service to our island community. Jeannette received her doctorate degree in 2016 from the University of Maryland-College Park upon successful completion of her dissertation, Dissonant Belonging and the Making of Community: Native Hawaiian Claims to Selfhood and Home.
Zoe Kosmas
Culinary Garden Director
Zoe Kosmas found her way to the soils of Kohala in 2010 where she developed a deep love and respect for the community and land of Hawai‘i. After helping to launch a small non-profit dedicated to agricultural education in Kapa‘au, Zoe worked as a Farm Production Assistant for the Kohala Center’s Demonstration Farm, supporting their Beginning Farmer Training Program and High School Agriculture Internship. Zoe joined Mālaʻai in 2016 as a garden educator and moved into her full-time role as Executive Director in 2021. After several fruitful years in the Executive Director role, Zoe is moving back into the program realm as the next Garden Director/Educator of the Culinary Garden. Leaning into the wisdom gleaned from her mentors Holly and Amanda, Zoe is excited to get her hands in the soil and to be working more directly with the students of Waimea Middle School. Zoe brings her passion for ‘āina, keiki and kaiaulu into alignment with the mission of Māla‘ai. She was a HANO Fellow, class of 2022, and a member of Wahine Po`ai Kalukalu cohort.
Gabriel Grosshuesch
Garden Program Assistant
Gabriel Grosshuesch started volunteering with Māla'ai in March of 2021, after being introduced by a dear friend. Born and raised in North Kohala, the connection between humans and land is very close to Gabriel’s heart and the work here at Māla'ai. He has a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a background in education, most recently teaching in Japan. He is passionate about gardening, cooking and being in community. As the Garden Program Assistant he is caring for the garden, working with students, coordinating volunteering & workdays, and helping manage our social media. He believes that helping keiki learn about what it means to nurture nature will help our future generations be more attuned to the needs of our common home.
Eleonor Leite Ah-Yo
HISGN Program Director
Eleonor is a veteran math teacher, an avid surfer, and beach volleyball player. An educator at heart, but always a person with diverse life passions, a meaningful mathematics curriculum has always driven her professional life. Before it was comfortable, Eleonor advocated inquiry-based, place-based, culture-based learning for her haumāna but also for herself as the kumu. When she was in the classroom full time, Eleonor made every attempt to make the garden her classroom.
As HISGN’s Program Director, Eleonor is thrilled to continue her work in Education as she helps the school garden movement grow at all of the kula on Hawaiʻi Island. She looks forward to stepping outside of her own classroom in order to help current kumu attain resources and network with key people so that they too, can develop equally meaningful learning experiences for their haumāna by way of a school māla.
Donna Mitts
HISGN Outreach Coordinator, Garden Educator
Donna Mitts has been involved in school garden education for over 20 years, has been working with the Hawaii Island School Garden Network for 11 years and has been an organic farmer for over 24 years. She has been a Garden Educator at three Hamakua Coast schools and enjoys supporting garden based education and sharing her passion for gardening with kids. She loves growing food and has great interest in increasing food security for Hawaiʻi through crop selection and seed saving.
Holly Sargeant Green
Afterschool Garden Educator
Holly became involved with Māla`ai when her son was a student at Waimea Middle School. Since then, she has been a volunteer, a board member, a part time assistant, and has been our full time Lead Garden Educator since 2012. Holly's major at U.C. Santa Cruz was biology. While there she worked on several field research projects. After completing her course work she became the head dolphin trainer at Long Marine Lab under the direction of professor Ken Norris. After that project ended, Holly came to Hawaiʻi to study wild populations of spinner dolphins with the Kula Nai'a research team. Caring for the land has also been a strong part of her education and interests. "What we do on the land has an impact on the oceans, everything is connected." Holly decided to dedicate the rest of her career to teaching students about gardening. Holly works hard to ensure that all her classes reinforce classroom lessons, as well as teach health and wellness and care for the land. She feels strongly that by instilling a love for the 'aina students will be empowered to create a healthy future for themselves and their community.
Kahikina Kaae-Whittle
Operations Assistant
Kahikina was born and raised in Kuli‘ou‘ou and Waimānalo on O‘ahu where she first learned about the importance of food sustainability through working in her Tutu’s kitchen, learning the family business in Hawaiian food catering and la‘au. Her studies, professional background, and ‘ike kūpuna led her down the path of work in the non-profit world where she has served in various capacities. She is excited to share her operations background and knowledge with Māla‘ai and the students of the Culinary Garden of Waimea. Kahikina and her family own and operate a flower farm in Pu‘ukapu, Waimea, and love to support our local vendors who bring the beauty of local flowers to our communities.
HISGN Steering Hui
Amanda Rieux
Mālaʻai Co-Founder, Teacher for Kū ʻĀina Pā
Amanda was invited to the Big Island in January 2005 to start WMS’ Māla’ai Garden after working as a garden teacher for several years at chef Alice Waters’ Edible School Yard in Berkley, Ca. – the project that Māla’ai is patterned after. Amanda earned a Certificate in Ecological Horticulture from the Center For Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at U.C. Santa Cruz. Her Bachelors degree in International Relations with concentrations in Peace and Conflict Resolution and Intercultural Communications is from The American University, Washington, DC. She also holds an International Baccalaureate from United World College of the American West, Montezuma, New Mexico.
Nancy Redfeather
HISGN founder,
Garden Education Specialist
Nancy Redfeather founded the Hawai’i Island School Garden Network in 2007, and co-founded the Hawai’i Farm to School Hui in 2010 both while she was at The Kohala Center. The Hawai’i Public Seed Initiative, and the Hawai’i Seed Growers Network are two of her current projects. She lives with her husband Gerry, gardens and grows seed on her family farm at Kawanui in Kona.
Wendy Baker
Teacher for Kū ʻĀina Pā,
Curriculum Specialist
Wendy Baker, intrigued by the connections between agriculture and culture since high school, is currently a history and garden teacher at Hawai`i Academy of Arts and Science Public Charter School in Pahoa. Wendy studied at The Evergreen State College, Washington, where she worked in the collectively-run Slow Food Café and graduated with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. An experienced teacher certified in grades 1-12, English, History, Gardening and Waldorf, Wendy develops standards-based curriculum with an emphasis on applied critical reasoning and creative thinking skills. In 2010, Wendy joined Hawai`i Island School Garden Network, and a nourishing partnership has developed. Wendy is the founder of Garden to Grinds Program at the Hawai`i Academy of Arts and Science Public Charter School, a program that has served over two hundred middle and high school students since 2015.
Jessica Sobocinski
Teacher for Kū ʻĀina Pā,
previous Food Corps Program Director for Hawaii Island
Jess was the youngest author of the Hawaiʻi School Garden Curriculum Map and has supported Kū ʻĀina Pa as a master teacher since stepping into her role as the Associate Director for FoodCorps Hawaiʻi in 2019. Born and raised in Indiana, Jess spent her undergraduate years at Indiana University cultivating community and youth gardens and orchards across the city of Bloomington. After receiving her bachelor's degree in Anthropology, she relocated to Hawaiʻi in 2013 to serve with FoodCorps Hawaiʻi's first cohort at Honaunau Elementary School in South Kona. After supporting garden-based learning for two years with FoodCorps in 2013-2015, Jess remained on Hawaiʻi Island and continued developing ʻāina-based education programs at local public, charter, and private schools for K-8 students. In her current role with FoodCorps, Jess supports nine FoodCorps AmeriCorps service members that lead students in hands-on garden, cooking, and food activities at HIDOE schools. Additionally, she advocates for food education in schools as part of the Hawaiʻi Farm to School Hui. Through her experience, she sees food as the cord that connects people back to land, culture, and one another, making it the perfect conduit for deep, meaningful learning.
Ming Wei
Teacher for Kū ʻĀina Pā,
Curriculum Specialist
Koh Ming Wei aka “intellectual farmer” has insatiable curiosity, and is a researcher, educational consultant, curriculum developer, māmaki farmer, and distiller. Her research includes how the school learning garden experience is a context conducive to teaching core subjects, STEM, and foundational life skills, and has created the Pedagogy of Food to frame the kind of education she believes in and shares. Widely traveled, Ming Wei is interested in how different cultures and indigenous communities work with nature to resolve ecological and social challenges through community partnerships, agriculture, food, music and art, and place-based education.
Ilana Stout, M.S.
Teacher for Kū ʻĀina Pā, Curriculum Specialist
Ilana Stout, M.S. is a sustainability educator who lives on Hawai’i Island. She has worked as a teacher in both the Hawai’i Department of Education (2005-2013) and University of Hawai’i (2013-2021) systems, and her expertise is in environmental science education, with an emphasis on agriculture, conservation biology and climate solutions. Ilana's graduate research examined heritage varieties of seed and seed saving on Hawai'i Island. Ilana started growing food when she was 4 years old, and started working in school gardens when she was 20. She currently lives on a homestead in lower Puna where she gardens every day.