HOW IT WORKS: For Crop Donors
The donation process:
- Read through this page and the FAQ.
- Register as a crop donor.
- Project Manager will reach out to you to discuss your needs and schedule a harvest
- Volunteers will harvest your donated produce.
- Depending on how much you need harvested, crews of 1 to 5 will come to your property and carefully harvest your produce. We bring all our own tools.
- Harvests last 1 to 2 hours. If there is a lot to harvest, we will schedule multiple sessions for the same day.
- As part of the fight against invasive species, we wash all the produce we harvest. Please provide somewhere for us to wash the produce. At minimum, we need access to a water hose.
- Do you have Little Fire Ants (LFA) on your property? Check out Big Island Invasive Species’s LFA Options for Kōkua Harvest Hostsfor tips on what you can do to prepare your area for our volunteers and how to eradicate LFA from your property.
- Harvested items are split between the site, volunteers, and our distribution partner.
- Your donation will be brought to a distribution partner as close to the origin location as possible.
- Mahalo nui loa for your donation! You will receive a tax letter at the end of the year outlining how much you contributed.
- After reading through this, have you decided donating isn’t for you but you still want to contribute? Sign up to be a volunteer!
Kōkua Harvest can also pick up crops that have already been harvested. If you’re interested in scheduling a pick up, please contact us.
We harvest:
• Quality produce that is no longer commercially viable
• Weather-damaged crops
• Produce from bypassed fields
• Non machine-harvestable crops
• Fruit trees from backyards and farms
• Excess home garden produce
We regretfully DO NOT (yet) harvest:
• Coconuts
• Macadamia nuts
• Produce beyond the reasonable reach of our picker poles and ladders (about 20+ feet high)
If you have the interest, skills, and/or contacts to help us harvest what we currently cannot, please message us!
Ready to donate a crop?
Click here and fill out the one-time donation form. You only need to fill this out once, after that, simply contact us to schedule subsequent harvests.
If you have any questions, get in touch with us.
Interested in the legalities? Click here to read federal and state laws protecting donors.
HOW IT WORKS: For Volunteers
The volunteer process: signing up
- Read our Terms of Participation and register as a volunteer
- Keiki 15 and under do not need to register or sign up, but must be supervised by an adult who is. The accompanying adult must notify the harvest lead if they wish to bring keiki. Please note that not all harvests are appropriate for keiki. Keiki-friendly harvests are indicated on the harvests page.
- Register as a volunteer. You only need to register once. You need to sign up for a harvest every time you want to attend a harvest.
- Check our Harvest Page for upcoming harvests. We send email and text notifications when harvests are added to the schedule. We also post harvest alerts on Facebook and Instagram
- Sign up for a harvest by clicking on the sign up link and following the directions on screen
- After you sign up for a harvest, you will see a page with the address of the harvest and any additional information relevant to that site. This is the only place you will see the harvest address, please make sure you write it down. You will also receive a confirmation email
- If you registered for a harvest and can’t make it, please cancel so someone else can join us. Your confirmation email has a link to use to cancel your sign up
- Remember to bring your comfortable, closed-toed shoes, water bottle, sunblock, rain gear, and a bag to take home some of the harvest for yourself. We suggest wearing a light, long-sleeved shirt, long pants, comfortable closed-toe shoes, and a hat
The volunteer process: harvesting with us
- When you arrive at a harvest, your harvest leader will be there to check you in and show you where to park, if not noted in the confirmation page
- Kōkua Harvest begins all harvests with a harvest circle where we go over our five respect expectations (“respectations”, see below) in detail and harvest tips specific to the day’s site and produce
- Please DO NOT bring harvesters who are not registered
Respectations
- Respect yourself | drink water, take a break, find shade
- Respect others | watch your turn radius when using long picking poles, leave tools where people can’t trip over them, conduct yourself in a professional manner
- Respect the produce | “gentle tossing” bruises the fruit, wash your hands before handling produce
- Respect the property | leave the property better than we found it, follow composting desires of the site owners even if they differ from what you do at home
- Respect the equipment | ask if you’re unsure how to operate a tool, clean tools after using them, handle clippers/shears/carefully - they are sharp!