Ua Ikea
Arts & Native Species Fundraising Farm Dinner
benefitting Hui Noʻeau and Maui Nui Botanical Gardens
Saturday, 5/24/25 at Nāulu Farm
Ua Ikea:
The revelatory power of art and native species
In 2025, Mākena Golf & Beach Club will continue to host community fundraising dinners & golf events to support important Maui organizations. All funds raised go directly to the organizations being celebrated. This year's dinner event series will focus on the revelatory power of art and native species. Each organization will recognize up to 3 native species that are particularly reflective of the organization's work and vision for community well-being. In this way, we re-member as a community the reciprocal relationship of aloha with our native species - that they also gather us. The kick-off event will be Ua Ikea.
Ua Ikea: Dinner Event
Join us for a fundraising dinner event honoring local organizations Hui Noʻeau and Maui Nui Botanical Gardens. Our goal is to honor and recognize these organizations that nurture our connection to the web of life through our imagination and through tender, artful care. Our intention for this event is to come together with those we can lean upon, trust, and have confidence in to support and grow Life in the fertile soils of our precious landscapes and imaginations.
The 5/24 dinner event includes delicious food and drink, live entertainment by Marja Lehua Apisaloma & Wailau Ryder, and beautiful views of Puʻu Ōlaʻi and Kahoʻolawe beyond. Seating is limited and is based on a first-to-register basis.
All proceeds from the event will benefit the honorees. Click on their registration links below to reserve your spot for this special event.
$150 / ticket
Hui Noʻeau Visual Arts Center
Hui No‘eau is committed to ensuring equitable access to the arts. The Hui works closely with its partners to identify and address the needs of the community. Hui youth outreach programs eliminate cost and logistical barriers to arts education for students with the greatest needs. Programs target students in Title 1 K-12 public schools, children and families living in homeless shelters; as well as individuals from rural communities (Lāna‘i, Moloka‘i, and Hāna) who lack access to the arts because of geography, lack of transportation, or other barriers. Program expansion into Lahaina schools and community organizations has provided a creative outlet to support the mental health and healing of children and families impacted by the fires.
"We are deeply grateful to Mākena Golf & Beach Club for including Hui No‘eau in the Ua Ikea benefit dinner, celebrating the revelatory power of art and native species. At Hui No‘eau, we believe art is the soul of our community—preserving culture, telling our stories, and uniting us in ways that inspire, heal, and strengthen our connection to each other and the world around us."
- Executive Director of Hui No'eau Visual Arts Center, Anne-Marie Forsythe
Maui Nui Botanical Gardens
The native plant botanical garden features more than 100 pre-European contact plant species that are labeled and have audio and other content through a self guided tour app, to explore traditional Hawaiian uses of each featured species and their native habitats. The funds raised at this event will be used to make the botanical garden more accessible to all visitors and create resources for Maui residents who want to incorporate native plants into their landscapes. Planting natives saves water, provides materials for cultural uses, and sometimes even assists with preventing extinction. The garden is replacing hazardous asphalt pathways, and will next be working towards repurposing old zoo enclosures to become resources for residential landscape planning based on specific Maui zones.
"Mākena Golf & Beach Club has long been a supporter of organizations working to protect and promote native Hawaiian plants. Maui Nui Botanical Gardens is excited to be a part of the Ua Ikea benefit dinner celebrating the intersection of art and native species; Hawaiian ethnobotany is a core focus for everything we do.” – Executive Director of Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, Tamara Sherrill
Lau Ke Aloha: Kinolau Native Species Art Creation Days & Exhibit:
Leading up to the Ua Ikea fundraising dinner event on 5/24 Aloha Makena Foundation will host a Lau Ke Aloha: Kinolau Native Species Art Day for Maui residents on Sat, 5/10 at Mākenaʻs Hale Pili.
Art created from the 5/10 community event will have an opportunity to be displayed in a web-exhibit hosted on this website and during the Ua Ikea dinner. In an effort to reach more of the Maui community, short video tutorials of the artists teaching will be posted to the Lau Ke Aloha website. All Maui residents are encouraged to submit their art; attendance at the community event and/or watching the video tutorials is not required. For every piece of art submitted by a Maui resident to the Lau Ke Aloha website by 11:59pm on Saturday, 5/17/2025, $5 will be donated by Mākena Golf & Beach Club to each organization, up to 300 entries. For more information, see the Lau Ke Aloha webpage.
“One of the absolutely vitalizing and humbling aspects of a Hawaiʻi worldview is to recognize natural phenomena and our native species as intimately connected to us, as family. The goal of these community art days is to nurture our role as younger siblings to our native plant family, to see our kino (body, form) as related to the kinolau (multiple forms) of this precious landscape. Through the skill and leadership of our Maui artists, we have an opportunity to express the respect and aloha that animates being part of an ʻohana (family, kin) by creating new native species art. In this way we live again a relationship that supports our ecosystem and Islandʻs wellbeing.” - Director of Mākena Community Engagement, Leahi Hall
The Plants That Gather Us
In a reciprocal relationship of aloha with our native species, they also gather us
Plants Featured by Maui Nui Botanical Gardens
Naupaka Papa
Scaevola coriacea (creeping naupaka, dwarf naupaka)
Maui Nui Botanical Gardens is located on a remnant dune system and our soil is dune sand, a specialized environment with a very high pH and other challenges to most plants. The last significant population of this low-growing endangered species is located on a remnant consolidated dune about 2 miles from the Gardens. MNBG staff, the County of Maui, and the Plant Extinction Prevention Program have been making regular work trips to this site for the last 8 years to weed and monitor the remaining 40 plants, and in 2025 we hope to work on plans for new plantings to support the population. The good news is that it is an extremely easy to grow species that makes a low maintenance, long lived groundcover anywhere that is low elevation leeward with full sun and good drainage. This species reminds us of the lifelong work our founder Rene Sylva did on Kaho’olawe and Maui to value and protect endemic coastal plants. Rene spoke eloquently about the smallest, most underwhelming small statured species such as naupaka papa, Panicum faurei, Nama sandwicensis, and many others that might be easily trampled or overlooked.
Kalo
Colocasia esculenta (Taro)
MNBG has beautiful views of Nā Wai ‘Ehā representing the waters of Waikapū, Wailuku, Waiehu, and Waiheʻe, the site of one of the most prolific kalo growing areas in Hawaiʻi. The great importance of kalo to Hawaiian culture can arguably be said to be why more than 100 unique Hawaiian crop cultivars still exist even though hundreds more have been lost. Long before feather capes or hula were part of the culture, many of these heritage varieties were being grown in Hawai’i. Jerry Konanui just about single handedly created today's public interest in Hawaiian crop varieties. He was directly responsible for the work MNBG now does with these precious heirlooms. The 65 remaining cultivars of kalo, along with the cultivars of maiʻa, ʻuala, ʻawa, and kō in the MNBG collection, receive much MNBG staff time and resources to ensure that they are correctly identified, labeled, and grown. Despite our soil’s unsuitability for crops, MNBG continues to work with Hawaiian researchers and growers to exchange and improve the cultivars collection each year, with the sole purpose of distribution to Maui County residents so that these cultivars will continue into the future.
Plants Featured by Hui Noʻeau
Kupukupu
Nephrolepis cordifolia
A type of sword fern, often one of the first plants to colonize lava flows, symbolizing growth, resilience, and renewal. Traditionally used in hula and ceremonies, and worn as lei or adornments for warriors and dancers. Symbolizes foundation and strength, much like the roots of artistic growth at Hui Noʻeau.
Koa
Acacia Koa
One of the most valuable native hardwoods, used in canoe building, weapons, tools, and fine crafts. Integral to the water cycle—its sickle-shaped leaves (phyllodes) help capture moisture, supporting watershed health. A key species in Hawaiian cloud forests, where it helps to hui (attract and gather) clouds, contributing to rainfall and groundwater recharge. Used in lei-making and holds deep symbolic meaning of strength, courage, and leadership. The Hui has a number of Koa trees on the property. Leaves are gathered and used in both our keiki and adult programs.
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Hala
Pandanus tectorius
The leaves of the hala tree are traditionally used for weaving. Skilled artisans weave intricate mats, baskets, hats, and other crafts from these leaves. The art of lauhala is not only a practical skill for creating functional items but also a form of cultural expression, creativity, and identity – all central facets to the Hui’s mission. The tree’s ability to produce sturdy prop roots, anchoring itself in challenging soils, is seen as a symbol of resilience and strength. The Hui was almost lost to private buyers from the continent in 2005, but the community rallied around the Hui’s mission to purchase the property and ensure accessibility to this special place in perpetuity – demonstrating the strength and resilience of the Maui arts community. The hala tree is considered a guardian of the land, embodying the deep spiritual connection between the people and their environment, similar to the way the Hui connects people to their creativity, identity, and the ‘āina in many cases. Classes in lauhala at the Hui give practitioners, students, and the community opportunities to connect and grow together, especially through times of challenge and adversity.