Tammy Mahealani Smith
Aunty Tammy in the mala at Lunalilo Home. Ka’ohua Photography
“In the world I work in right now, we have too many kūpuna trying to figure this out by themselves, and they need help.”
Mrs. Smith aka Aunty Tammy, is the Dietary Manager for The King Lunalilo Trust and Home and oversees their expanding Meal Delivery Program. With a focus on delivering culturally competent care to Hawaiian kūpuna and the broader Hawaiʻi senior community, Aunty Tammy’s role is to provide kūpuna with ʻāina based “Mea ʻAi Hawaiʻi,” on a daily basis, not only at Lunalilo Home but also to kūpuna within the community. We caught up with Tammy in the summer of 2020, after numerous interviews that recognized her as a community hero.
Can we start out with a little bit of a background on what it is you do and what was going on pre-COVID?
Aloha, I’m Tammy Smith, second-generation owner of Hale Kealoha. So after 35 years of owning Hale Kealoha, the catering business, and eventually the charter school lunch business, I landed at Lunalilo Home. Food is important and I learned the majority of the things I know today from my dad, Herbert Hoe. My dad is an ʻai pono warrior along with Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell and Dr. Claire Hughes, who really encouraged him to continue his work.
As the daughter, you stay vigilant to the work, and running our catering company was where Hale Kealoha grew. We're known for Hawaiian food. When my dad began teaching at Kamehameha Schools, after retiring from the firehouse, he created, ʻAi Pono, a wellness program. Learning alongside him about our ʻāina food has been an amazing journey. There's a lot of changes in the way we think. It allowed us to connect culturally, but also to look at ourselves as a family of kuleana. Kuleana plays a big part in what we do today and where we've come in preserving what we know.
“Kuleana plays a big part in what we do today and where we've come in preserving what we know.”
Humble beginnings started at Waiahole Poi Factory; my dad and my uncle Calvin worked hard with the community to save. I was there and helped them get it certified as a commercial kitchen. That's where Hale Kealoha was born- at Waiahole Poi Factory; selling plate lunches on a Friday, Hawaiian food, catering like no other, and growing at the same time.
Then we got seriously into doing ʻAi Pono, which was my dad's branch of the company. And I took care of the catering. Hand in hand. Then of course we collaborated on creating our school lunch system, which provides for Hawaiian-focused charter schools on Oʻahu. We started with Pūnana Leo. Pre-COVID, we had eight schools, we were servicing 300 kids a day, delivering from Waimānalo to Kāneʻohe to Honolulu.
“We went into total lockdown here at Lunalilo. We stopped all operations of our adult care. Immediately. And it's nine months now.”
Two years ago, I was asked to come over to Lunalilo. Lunalilo had an HMSA grant that allowed us to create a māla, our garden-to-table project for the kūpuna. That's been ongoing for the last two years, and it continues to grow. The growth is all pre-COVID.
Pre-COVID was...you get into the daily grind. From Lunalilo Home, we provide meals for our community as a vendor with Hawaiʻi Meals on Wheels. We also have a private delivery service here. Nothing big, 30, 40 meals a day. Just lunch. And then, March happens; COVID happens. We went into total lockdown here at Lunalilo. We stopped all operations of our adult care. Immediately. And it's nine months now.
Prior to the announcement, I was helping my kids get ready for COVID. We were two weeks ahead. I said, “Something's coming. “You guys put something out on social media for Hale Kealoha.” We end up calling it “Āina Hauʻoli. We put that out on Facebook, and it was amazing. This happened the day before Caldwell’s announcement of COVID. We already had orders ready to go out the door. We created one frozen meal package of seven meals a week.
We had volunteers come in to deliver, work closely with our ʻāina momona keiki and families, and plenty of volunteers. Everybody jumped in. People ordered online because they wanted to support a kupuna. Not only theirs, but they would sponsor kūpuna. In the same breath, on Lunalilo’s side, Hawaiʻi Meals on Wheels shut down their volunteer services. So now all their staff had to go out and deliver because a majority of their volunteers were also kūpuna.
“All we can do, and what the kūpuna look forward to every single day, is mealtime. You gotta make the best meals that you can for them. And you gotta throw in a little bit special stuff when you can.”
Now we're packing 1000 meals on a Saturday, freezing it, and getting that ready to go out the door on Monday morning. That has been consistent since March. That's a big deal from doing 30 meals a day to 1000 meals a weekend, to go out in one day. Each kupuna that receives those meals gets anywhere from one to five meals. We also meet all their dietary requirements.
Besides the frozen, we still do the everyday hot meals for Hawaiʻi Meals on Wheels. Those still get picked up daily, Monday to Friday. We received money from OHA that allowed us to provide three meals a week for kūpuna. We took those three meals, and we kept in contact with our adult care center clients. That gave us a way to go check up on them every Monday. That ran until July 13th when funding stopped.
For Lunalilo, before COVID, 45 kūpuna came here daily, now we cannot take any more clients into the home because they’re still in lockdown. It's too risky. Our biggest job during COVID is to keep our 32 residents that live here safe. It's been hard to watch our kūpuna go through six months of no contact. Without their own family, it's starting to affect them, a lot! I know they miss them.
All we can do, and what the kūpuna look forward to every single day, is mealtime. You gotta make the best meals that you can for them. And you gotta throw in a little bit special stuff when you can. It's ulu season. A couple of weeks ago, I made an ulu kūlolo dessert for them. I feel like that really breaks up the crazy mess that is going on. It makes them happy.
“Cooking is easy, but relationships are hard. People gotta trust you first. If they don’t trust you with their food, then that's pretty hard to accomplish. And it’s gotta be ono. Why make stuff that the kūpuna cannot even recognize?”
Our garden has also been going off for months with squash and eggplant. So, you know, pork soup and eggplant. Lūʻau. Lau Lau days are the best days. They like to eat stew. These things start to matter. We had kalo last week, so I made chicken kalo stew. Whatever our garden gives is what we change the menu to, to please the kūpuna first.
Our outreach into our community is pumping out thousands and thousands of meals. We went from 4,000 meals a month to...we’re at our 15,000 meal mark per month. Not just through Hawaiʻi Meals on Wheels. We're also providing meals 750 meals a week to Papakōlea Community. The kūpuna and keiki receive meals from us three times a week.
We don't have a big kitchen or a big staff. But I make ʻem work. I can cook on a cheap little camping stove and feed thousands and thousands of people. That’s easy. Cooking is easy, but relationships are hard. People gotta trust you first. If they don’t trust you with their food, then that's pretty hard to accomplish. And it’s gotta be ono. Why make stuff that the kūpuna can’t even recognize? They know what squash is. They know chicken lūʻau is, they know lau lau. They know Kalua pig and cabbage. That's the food we know.
I give my best every single day. I sleep very little cause I’m excited to get to work the next day. What else am I going to do? My dad's a four o'clock in the morning kind of guy. He’ll call me and remind me to stay who I am. That constant reminder about your kuleana is huge. You know why things grow so fast over here at Lunalilo? It’s not because of me, it’s not because of my husband. It's the stuff that we don't get to see. It is what is supposed to happen, and your job is just to get it done!
Pay attention. You have reminders. Daily. Are you paying attention to your kūpuna? If you don't, they kinda kick you in your ass for a little while, until you pay attention. My responsibility has always been to feed the lahui.
When I think about how many meals you're serving; the demand doesn't go away, it's increasing. Pre-COVID, was it clear to you how many people were this close to being food insecure?
It's not an eye-opener. I knew it was already happening. Because of Lunalilo. We stay in Hawaiʻi Kai. Nobody thinks that happens in Hawaii Kai. Everybody thinks everyone in Hawaii Kai got money. That's not true. I’ve realized one of the biggest things is, kūpuna do not like being an inconvenience to their family. So they call for help. Their family can be living upstairs.
“I’ve realized one of the biggest things is, kūpuna do not like being an inconvenience to their family. So they call for help. Their family can be living upstairs.”
They just don't want to be a burden. Or there are the ones that cannot cook for themselves. We still have plenty falling through the cracks. Because they're not qualified or maybe because they still own their house and collect social security. Is that enough to live on? We know it isn’t. And now with COVID, going to the grocery store, they’re scared. They don’t wanna get sick. How are they going to get food?
In the world I work in right now, we have too many kūpuna trying to figure this out by themselves, and they need help.
I feel like the people that can financially support these efforts, they don't always support the right people. They want to go with the big numbers, something a little bit more shiny. And when things fall, I go clean them up. Because that's my responsibility, my kuleana.
I’m reminded of a program early on that served 10,000 meals a day, packing it in styrofoam and flying it to different islands. The meal would get to somebody lukewarm at four o'clock in the afternoon. Would it have made more sense to find localized, small mom-and-pop businesses, and keep them open?
It was hard when I realized what was going on there. I work hard at what I do. We all got paid the same amount for meals ($7) It isn’t hard to do the math, 300,000 meals times seven is $2 million. $2 million in two months. All of that money could have saved so many businesses in our community. Do you know how many companies went down in two months? My company Hale Kealoha included.
No can. How can we not understand that styrofoam is not good for us? It's already been mandated that we stop using styrofoam. The Hokulea didn’t go around the world for four years for us to still use styrofoam. If we continue to be the problem, we are either going to kill our ʻāina or kill ourselves. And for what? Money? Is it really worth it?
Do people take for granted that you're going to step up and do it no matter what?
One of the biggest problems is that I say yes to everything. And I’m like, we’re just going to do it, whether we’re going to get reimbursed or not. It doesn't matter. What matters is it gets done for our people. I’ve put all my life into this. Just because someone is a decorated cook, doesn't make them great. You don't need to call me chef, I know what I’m capable of.
I am connected to everything that's in my food. I have a responsibility to it. That’s why I stick to my ʻāina foods. There's a relationship, there's a kuleana to it.
“I am connected to everything that's in my food. I have a responsibility to it. That’s why I stick to my ʻāina foods. There's a relationship, there's a kuleana to it.”
On Maui, our Farm to Family relief boxes are being filled on Oʻahu with vegetables from the continent. I've been wondering if it is the philosophy of the distributor? Were they already only importing?
They should’ve entrusted us guys as kanaka first. Every week in a box, they don’t need 45 pounds of food that they’re not going to use. Why don’t we put 10 pounds of awesome, amazing food in that box that people are going to consume? Kūpuna cannot finish that much food in one week. If you don’t have a stove, how are you going to cook it? Did you equip the kūpuna or the homeless with these things?
I watched a webinar months ago, with all the big players and they're saying, we can't make it without government support, subsidies, and all of this. They were saying it's the large farms that are suffering. I'm sitting here confused: you've got the distributor, you've got the federal money coming in and you’ve got the big farms saying we can't sell our product because it's harder for us to adapt. Why is nobody talking to each other?
Here’s another thing to consider. We all know the kalo farmers gear up for summer. For all the big pāʻinas. Everybody’s going to want poi. Everybody is going to buy lūʻau. But this year, we didn’t have parties. There were no big lūʻaus. No weddings, no conferences, no nothing. What happened to the kalo? Many had to give it away for free because they could only do so much. Lunalilo was one of the places that they came in and asked, “Auntie, what you need, a hundred pounds a week of kalo?”
That doesn't sit well with me, because the kalo farmer took nine months for the kalo to grow, and they get zero. Now they have got to wait another nine months and see what happens. We have COVID relief money coming in. We could have bought the kalo and distributed it. Then paid the kitchen to cook ‘em. Kalo is hard to cook if you don’t understand kalo. Or maybe they should have bought everyone a pressure cooker. I don't know.
Yeah, and a little recipe book. How to cook it.
Money gets stuck in administration. It gets stuck with big guys. In the shipping. Why are we going to ship them? We should have just kept the food over here. It’s devastating. We could have saved so many small businesses in each community.
Photo by Ka’ohua Photography
“So here's my idea: we see what's going on in every community because every community is different. What happens in Kailua doesn't happen in Kalihi.”
So here's my idea: we see what's going on in every community because every community is different. What happens in Kailua doesn't happen in Kalihi. Why should I go serve lūʻau stew in Kalihi when they are going to say, we don't eat that. If I brought them pork adobo, maybe. You have to know your community. Waianae is loaded with food. Why do we always think “Waianae, no more food”? Waianae has three big farmers. How come we don’t buy from them? We got restaurants down there that can use the business.
We have to be better at being responsible for our community.
There's a lot of things we can talk about that went wrong in these meal preparations, but we have to look at all the good that we've been able to do in the last nine months. And what we continue to do.
Let’s talk about the positives, are there changes that are happening now that you would like to see stay?
For Hale Kealoha, my daughter-in-law and I have been in conversation about how to be creative. How do we make life a little convenient for families? We've tried to create a build-your-own meal box. We could cook all these main dishes, bag them, and put out a menu saying we have lūʻau stew, beef stew, tripe stew, chicken long rice.
(Photo by Ka’ohua Photography)
You build your box according to that, and we make sure we take care of our farmers and that it’s affordable for families. Anywhere from one pound to five pounds, depends on how big your family is. It’s a new wave drive through I guess without it being McDonald’s, Jack in the Box, or Taco Bell. I’m sure everyone is overloaded eating those foods.
How do you think the history books in the future are going to describe this time?
At the rate we are going, it’s going to be a very bad time. There's no true solution. So my thing is, we as kanaka, we've got to step away from our government and look at our own people and save our own people. When I say save our own people, I'm not saying we're only going to save the Hawaiians. We got to save people that live here. And stop bringing in. Every day, you hear people are relocating to live in Hawaiʻi, are you serious?
The thing we are in control of is what we do for our people. How are we going to do it and with what resources? I feel that we have good resources. We just have to stop looking at who's going to be in charge. I think titles go to people's heads.
What can community the do to help your efforts?
I think, look into their own community first. Really check on your neighbor. Look at what the need is and help them find their resources. And tap into your community resources before you head out to bigger spaces to see because they're right next to you.
If everyone drives to Kahalu’u to get their meals then Kahaluʻu doesn't have enough meals to feed their own community. Why are we all going to Aloha Stadium to drive through to get a box when that's a big community. So we got to look at our own communities to help. And then pick a restaurant in your community that is shut down, and encourage them to stay open, and try to support them.
Last, but not least, I want to ask who you're inspired by or if there's anybody you want to shout out in this work?
So I definitely wanna shout out to my kids: Kaneala and Nanyne Smith and Hale Kealoha. From the beginning of COVID they have stepped up, stepped in, took care of kūpuna as needed, took care of families. They hustle, even without support. And they have no support right now.
We can do so much. Lots of work ahead.