As a nontraditional student, I have a wealth of experience that provides context to my decisions today. Considering that I was a child of two wild addicts, my early development was quite eventful. However that has also contributed to my not being able to go to college when I was young. I have always been determined to overcome the obstacles set before me, therefore I committed myself to experiential learning. Through observation, I noticed that the symptoms that the mental health industry treats, are only band-aids for the root causes in situations concerning addiction, domestic abuse, repeating detrimental cycles, and suicidal behaviors. The medicines and therapies are more effective than allowing the problem to go untreated, however the current treatments are adding to the actual root cause of the problem - disenfranchisement. Learning that has taught me to look beyond the symptomatic behaviors and to look deeper for solutions to the problem. Separately, I host series of language and environmental events in my community, as a means of fostering the literal common unity in the community. In those atmospheres I learned that all of my volunteers and attendees were suffering from all of those problems listed above, and that they enjoyed returning to my events as a means to learn how to love themselves. The attendees brought to my awareness, that I foster an environment that uplifts them and causes them to believe in themselves. But there was one more problem: many of them also suffer from economic poverty, which contributes to the disenfranchisement because the people were embarrassed to admit their woes. Continuing the events for a number of years, I tried various methods of locating solutions that I could provide for others, but the world's problems are simply too big for one person to handle out-of-pocket. I tried almost everything, including running for office in the last election. Still committed to find solutions that actually help families; preventing the families from enduring the brokenness that I found in my own root family, I made a choice to get a farm where I can help families heal through growing food, where I can contribute to the wealth of food at the food bank, and to get my degree in Business Administration to open a subsequent store that will provide additional employment opportunities for unskilled, or lowly skilled labor. This type of employment aims to contribute to the efforts of building job retention, resumes, and future employment opportunities for those who choose to use this type of employment to supplement their household income with competitive wages that are conducive to economic survival in Hawai'i.

My life has humble beginnings that are specific to poverty, being multiracial during a time when that was not as acceptable as it is today, and domestic violence. Left to struggle alone on the streets of North Philadelphia since the age of nine years, I have a wealth of experience that was unknown to my age group. Maintaining an education was a top priority to me because that was the only means of surviving my situation alive, and planning to move into greater pastures as an adult. At that time, I was too young to work or fill out my own paperwork, which made survival even harder. I could not get approved for free lunch at school and had none of the basic life necessities that I would need to succeed - except the Free Library of Philadelphia, where I spent a majority of my time during daylight hours. During my senior year in high school, the combination of personal circumstances prevented me from graduating or going to college. I had to care for my siblings and cousins who were entering the same reality that I had been living with for some time already. I went straight to work to maintain a home for my family. Having endured brutal conditions in my childhood home, then on the streets, I persevered by advancing through hard work ethic. During this time, I also became pregnant by my new fiancé who was murdered while standing next to me during my first trimester. This was my last peer standing, from my childhood familiarity. Urban violence took almost everybody I knew by the time I was twenty-one years old. Since then, I maintained my family until such a time that I could return to school. My hopes are to change that reality for others.

My goal in life is a broad goal, therefore I chose a career path that will allow me to integrate my smaller goals into one large goal. My larger goal is agro-economic security and balancing community mental health issues through environmental health practices. To bring those topics together with a career goal, my goal is entrepreneurship to sell products that are locally produced, including my own, and to utilize the profit margin for philanthropic actions for my community. I spent the last decade recovering from a traumatic brain injury and subsequent corrective skull surgery. Between the physical recovery and the PTSD, I wanted to find a way to maintain my sense of ambition and positive energy, so I began volunteering in areas that matter to me: survivors of domestic violence, homelessness, addiction recovery [from the perspective of a child of two addicts], and I began to notice other areas of need in the community. Those other needs presented themselves as barriers to the community service arena that I was currently working in. As my causes caught traction in the community, I would move to the next cause - getting deeper toward the heart of the matter. By the time I decided to go back to school, I was advancing beyond the heart of the matter, to the bare root causes preventing my community from thriving. Further diving into the matter of elevating society, I noticed that the issues that plague my community are far less imminent than in most other communities because Hawai'i is filled with small communities that still care for one another no matter the differences between people. As an island community, there is no other way for everyone to survive. At the heart of the matter, the root cause for at least 80% of addiction, suicide, abuse, and certain violent crimes is socioeconomic disenfranchisement. From the macroeconomic perspective the assistances offered can provide temporary relief, but the panic cycle repeats in the following month when temporary assistance ends. Mental health centers can provide a wide array of services, but only to those who qualify and are able to attain such assistance, but often times those people need to contribute to the household. Contrastingly, communities often do not have enough help for people on lower ends of the socioeconomic ladder; a number that is increasing with each decade. The last portion of the root cause of our toxic environment and physical health, is that people don't have access to healthy food. The lack of food security affects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and the lack of healthy food can create a toxic situation that puts family members at-risk of a person's poor health. To tie all of these separate causes together, I am working with displaced youth and young adults on the farm by coaching their confidence and inspiring them to go just one step up from where they are today. Eventually those individuals will benefit when the company opens for business and they have real jobs, not just free harvests. Our store will purchase from local craftspeople, farmers, as well as producers to empower local entrepreneurship. Our company will hire and promote from within, adding other industry professionals for diversity. Our business will provide finances through donations to some of the nonprofits who serve our community in a direct capacity. Through sharing our philosophy and philanthropy, we hope to educate, then inspire others to take like-minded actions - worldwide.

My favorite hobby is restoring the rainforest land in my hometown, Hana. I enjoy bringing the native trees back to their respective endemic biomes and watching them grow. Special moments that I particularly enjoy, are during rain season lazy days where I can play the piano while watching the raindrops fall from leaf to leaf, trickling down the tree trunks, and flowing through the land. The serenity that the rain in a rainforest brings is unmeasurable. What makes this a great hobby to have, is the fact that I know that I am combatting climate change in my locality while enjoying the peaceful essence of nature. Our rainforest land is abundant with life. Everything grows here. Our rainforests grow medicinal plants, food, beautiful flowers, and trees whose bark we use to make cloth, once a year. My children and I love to take hikes on the trails to study geography, botany, and growth patterns of plants. We enjoy planting new trees where there used to be a forest that was previously destroyed. Every rain season we wait for our rain measurements to see if the rain cycle is returning back to its traditional patterns. Playing the piano while watching the rain fall in our own portion of the rainforest, is beyond any description that I could ever muster. The raindrops seem to come to life, dripping to the tune that is being played. The whole scene is restorative to the soul and brings me back to my center of balance.

As a nontraditional student, I have decades of community service under my belt and have chosen to raise my children that way as a way of life. Today, as a single parent with three young adults, I can affirm that my household gives an estimated two hundred community service hours monthly. Personally and currently I serve as volunteer executive secretary for the Aloha Aina political party, on the board of directors for a community business council, as a youth advocate on the weekends where I teach young adults to find confidence in themselves through learning how to farm, build, and restore the environment. When Iʻm not actively in classes, I also assist people in learning the Hawaiian language through the Duolingo app. Lastly, I share the harvest from my newly established farm, with members of the community that are not as fortunate to have fresh food growing. On a weekly basis, I spend - one hour language coaching - 48 hours coaching agricultural and cultural practices with teens - one hour per week working with Hana Business Council - 10 hours per week developing candidates for the upcoming 2022 election and the rest of my time completing course studies Prior to the pandemic, I also spent 6-10 hours per week at Maui Historical Society and 5 hours per week volunteering on other farms. During the pandemic I ran for office to serve my community. I truly enjoy serving my community in a number of capacities because I have very humble roots and appreciate all of the learning experiences that I have had along the way, that contribute to my character today. In 1996, domestic violence disabled me. Until my surgery in 2012, doctors were not sure if anything could be done to help the situation and with the invention of the craniectomy, there was nothing that they could do. At that time the risks associated with the surgery were high. After a lengthy recovery, I am happy to serve the greater good of my community in every way that I can. Below you will find some reference links to some of the more recent volunteer work that I have been committed to. Executive Secretary, Aloha Aina Party - www.alohaainaparty.info Board of Directors Secretary, Hana Business Council - www.hanamaui.com Former Docent & Archivist, Maui Historical Society at Hale Hoʻikeʻike - https://youtu.be/lx1y3xODvtk *using my cultural practitioner title: Kahala Maui, and shown with my daughter Leilani Duolingo profile: https://www.duolingo.com/profile/KahalaChru Running for Office: www.votekahala.com Video Documentation on the farm: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLicbJlYLcbTQqtvMGFMOB_5Vf5IYN34N7

As an impoverished, nontraditional, minority student with a neurological disability, it was a tough choice to think about pursuing my dream of a college education. Due to my humble beginnings in life, I vowed as a young girl to change the world - a phrase that I learned while watching all of the fortunate girls in beauty pageants on tv. I had to forego my own education to raise my siblings. I never wanted to see another child go through the experiences that we grew up with. At the time, it was my best to foster children who were experiencing abuse and negligence, until a new cause struck me. My first fiance was murdered by my side during my pregnancy with my first child. Living in urban poverty meant to coexist with crime, addiction, abuse, and a lack of resources. Later, due to the fact that I did not know the red flag indicators of abuse, I sustained an abusive marriage that almost cost my life. As a newly single parent with three children, I once again vowed to never let that happen to anyone again. There was one problem: I was uneducated and poor. For the next decade, I did everything that I could to stabilize my own economic situation until I worked myself to the point that my body shut down and my neurological damage surfaced from the amount of abuse that I previously sustained. After my brain surgery there was a long recovery time that left me wondering if I had enough cognitive ability left to go to school to become the solution that I needed to be, in order to help others. While making that decision, the continuation of poverty exposed me to more societal issues than I could handle. I explored many options including opening a nonprofit, but I live in Hawai'i where we have nonprofit organizations for just about everything, and I've testified in the budget hearings to vouch for organizations that I regularly volunteered with. However each time I would walk away from those hearings sad, because each organization is trying to make a difference and only one gets the grant. I became involved in public policy, but that was a never-ending argument that did not serve my cause well enough. I finally started school in 2018. To my surprise, I found my way to the Dean's List, but more importantly, I found my method of improving the lives of more demographics of people than I had ever imagined. I can start a business that will enhance Hawai'i's local economy for small entrepreneurs, I can develop entry level jobs with room for advancement, and can utilize the corporate profits to empower organizations that are dedicated to helping children and families to overcome the issues that once damaged the child inside of me. Through economic restoration in my community, I can remove the economic barriers that maintain poverty cycles - which often put children and families at-risk of the types of experiences that I had growing up. Through education and shared information, I can extend that impact to wider communities in the same manner that I engage to empower other farmers by teaching them skills that I have acquired on the farm, that will help them to succeed. These goals are my life work, and my dedication is paramount.

Thank you for this opportunity to strive a little bit further. My name is Jennifer, and I am a non-traditional student with very humble beginnings. Aside from regular ancestral trauma from the impacts of colonization, my family was actively engaged in self-destruction when I was a small child, leaving me to be a homeless youth throwaway on the streets of Philadelphia. Although I was on the streets, I continued to push academically, hoping to get a full scholarship to college; as a means of rising up the economic ladder to help my siblings. Life had other plans. As urban violence took over my neighborhood, I found myself pregnant at twenty years old, from a fiancé who was murdered on the day we got engaged. From that point on, I became a single, working parent. Later, I got married, had two more children, and domestic abuse left us in the homeless during the peak of a blizzard, searching for safety. That became the turning point in my life where I took my children and left Philadelphia. A decade later, complications from a previously sustained traumatic brain injury left me paralyzed. My children were my inspiration to push forward. I underwent a craniectomy, and when healed enough, started college to prepare for my greatest moments yet. During my time of healing, I began to notice that my situation was more common than I knew. I felt like it was no longer good enough for me to just end the cycle for myself. I volunteered a lot of time with all sorts of community agencies, only to find that there is never enough funding for these agencies to complete their mission. Helping others began to feel like mission impossible. Therefore, after gaining my first degree in Cultural Studies [a personal goal to understand my place in the world better], I stayed in school to get my degree in advanced business in technology to utilize my skills in business as a means to finance the causes that I wish to help in the community - which there are a lot of. In the meantime, I also use that very same set of skills to continue to volunteer in more meaningful capacities. Alongside regular attendance at University of Hawai'i Maui College, I also went through a number of smaller certification programs to expedite the process and started a farm to strengthen Maui's food security. The cost of living is a stark difference than typical household incomes. By utilizing and maximizing my own resources, I am able to help other families overcome those areas of financial stress that often put families at-risk of stress overload, replacing their food shortage with healthy options. I believe that the combination of my personal goals lend themselves toward the greater cause of helping others to break the cycles of poverty and stress by sharing my work through community organization, to add to the works of others in the community; equating to a positive impact on all of society.

Living with multiple neurological diagnosis is a rough ordeal to go through. Some people see me as useless, while others constantly wonder what is wrong with me that I am not functioning like everybody else. Meanwhile, it takes all that I have to keep going - daily. Rather than to see my disabling conditions as something that holds me down, I see them as a hurdle to jump in a race to success. Although I am racing, I am only competing with my record scores of yesterday, as a measurement of my today, in reference to my goals for tomorrow. I am not interested in competing with others, for my conditions expose to me that we all come from different backgrounds and experiences. Fully recognizing that we are all unique, I choose to only compete with my best, to continue to make myself better. In 2012, neurosurgeons at South Florida University warned me that there was no guarantee that I would be able to live a normal life. The problem with that, was that I am an impoverished single parent - who has no support system. Knowing that my kids have nobody but myself to depend on, I did not accept that news as something that I could live with. How would my children fare out if I could not take care of them? I didn't want them to be subject to another sad story, so I took my health into my own hands. I began to work on eating foods that would help cellular repair in my body, and training myself to keep going for four, to six, eight, then twelve hour increments. Once I could go for almost a whole day steadily, I challenged myself to volunteer in community organizations, to see if I could work yet. Still unable to commit in that capacity, I started school and began to look at which avenues would be the most viable. I'm determined to show my children what perseverance looks like, to inspire my children to be resilient. It took me about six years after the surgery that partially corrected my Chiari type 1 brain malformation, but the domestic violence that I once endured, caused permanent damage to my brain's processing center, which hurts my health mentally and medically, because my body does not relay important messages where they need to go. I could not allow this to hold me down. So my perspective is that of driving a manual vehicle: I know that I have to literally live consciously to ensure that I can function the next day. Regardless of all of those distractions, I started school in 2018 and maintained a 4.0 until Covid-19 happened. In December 2020 I obtained my Associates Degree in Hawaiian Studies and Liberal Arts. During the same time, I was able to obtain several professional certifications and purchase a farm through the USDA. All of my family is in school, my children also work, and I farm on the weekends. My calling is to open a business that sells my farm products, and to use the profits to uplift and empower my community, especially those who face similar barriers that I am currently overcoming. I've joined a business council, lead in a political party, and continue to volunteer as needed in my community. Mine is a show that nothing can hold us back, when determination is present. When people tell me that I'm confident, I remind them that I am simply determined.

Joy is something that is often associated with material wealth but technically has nothing to do with that, which explains why people move into better economic positions but still suffer the same problems. Through experience I have learned this lesson quite well. Therefore I find my joy in sharing the definition of joy with others. What does that mean? Sharing joy with others is becoming a resource that the people around me need, remaining flexible to assert what strengths I have to accommodate their needs. I find my greatest joy in helping others actualize their greatest dreams, on a zero budget. Joy is inviting families who sorely need a vacation to my farm, and giving them a family camping adventure that helps them to bond and build memories. It is bringing troubles teens to my farm to harvest and deliver fresh, organic produce to the local food bank and to give them the recognition for the deed. It is serving my community through public testimony at county and state levels. Joy is when I am hosting a room full of small children who are painting a banner that will be publicly displayed, taking photos or their artistic pride, or when we practiced a play for so long and today is their performance. To see the joy on their faces, witness stressed-out parents smile proudly, and siblings cheer them on, brings me joy. Personally, my joy is praying in my rock garden and spending time on the farm when nobody is there - just walking through the myriad of beautiful plants; for my farm is a food forest that is filled with endangered endemic species, a rare sight to see. I find tranquility in watching my children succeed which is something that I never knew that I could do for myself.

Giving is the ultimate pleasure in life because all life is codependent with its environment, and giving is the primary means of reducing the footprint as a consumer of resources. We breathe the same air. We share the same public spaces, emotions, and communal experiences. We all have needs that are not quite being met by our own sole resources. Therefore I give. In terms of socialism, giving is primarily material but in terms of life, giving is far more than that. To share my strengths with the community, I give organic food from my farm and grow with plants that reduce the impact of global warming. I serve on community boards that uplift the community members; providing valuable resources to help people to realize their dreams. But most of all, I listen. I listen to people's problems, provide counsel as needed, or a connection to the resources that are needed, and walk with them through the process. I give through servitude such as with the homeless missions and holiday gift-giving programs. I do fundraisers that connect local businesses with commerce through communal giving. Lastly, when needed, I testify in county and state affairs to assure that the voice of the people is heard. In my island community, a person who is as active as much as I am, is recognized when stating the number of voices that I am representing on that day. Legislature knows that I am in the community working to help people on a daily basis, and know that people tell me what they need. Therefore when I report those figures before people in positions that can help, those people listen to me and my community is able to receive blessings far greater than what I could do on my own.

On a mass scale, people today are suffering from a lack of spiritual, emotional, and relational fulfillment. No business or nonprofit organization can truly address the internal disenfranchisement that naturally occurs by living in a nonorganic society. Yet, the world is continuing to go in an unhealthy direction at the expense of our core being. As an interracial child in the early 1980's; whose choices were either to live in an abusive household or on the streets without parents, I learned how to observe human behavior from multiple perspectives. I knew what I felt inside - what I needed the most. During that same time, many strangers had helped me along, sharing their stories. I talked to my peers. I noticed a pattern. What I noticed was that the only thing people really need is to be acknowledged, heard, seen, and loved. People have the skills to find food, shelter, and survival. But people cannot be the external connection to themselves; a love that can only come from an external relation. People need to know that they are connected, that they matter, and that they are valued. Therefore, I spend a majority of my time uplifting people and helping them to actualize themselves through allowing myself to be the sounding board that they need, connecting them with resources, and assisting major life transitions. For my family, that extends to my position as the person responsible for much more, such as extended family medical decisions, housing, legal obligations, and education. For my community, it also means networking solutions to meet the totality of the needs of each situation, and growing a farm that feeds the community at-large because we now depend on a barge that hasn't been delivering consistently. I value humanity, and am committed to loving through provision of servitude.

As a result of growing up with domestic violence, I did not know that it was not normal and furthermore did not know the signs of abuse or what that meant. In my first relationship I was abused and suffered traumatic brain injury that changed my life in 1996. Years later in 2012, the brain injury compounded into other medical issues leaving me unable to care for myself and children. In the years between 1996 and 2012, the surgery to correct my skull damage did not yet exist but in 2012 the surgery had recently been developed and doctors were afraid that I might not survive both the disability or the surgery. I had to have faith because my children had nobody else to depend on. After surgery, my recovery went much faster than the doctors expected, and soon after that I brought my kids back to the root land where our family came from. Neurologists were still uncertain if I would ever be able to function like a normal citizen again because of how the injuries I sustained had affected my brain functionality. In 2018 I proceeded to enroll in school and found my way to the Dean's List almost immediately - thus indicating that I had successfully found a way to overcome my neurological setbacks. During the peak of Covid-19 I became the first college graduate in my family with an Associate Degree, alongside my oldest son who graduated with me. Today, I am working towards my Bachelor Degree in business administration and look forward to exceling beyond expectations.

True recovery means eradicating the disenfranchisement that a person feels inside, which seems to be a root of all addiction and suicidal behaviors. People don't wake up and decide that today is the day they are going to become an addict of any sort, or that they are going to commit to harming themselves. People generally resort to those behaviors when they are disenfranchised from their reason for existence, from their families, and from their community. As the child of two addicts, a former addict, and a surviving member of a family who struggles with addiction, I have been working in this field on my personal time for most of my life. Every single person that I have met; has a variation of a story that begins with prior family issues that caused them to feel like they were not valued, did not belong, and those feelings extended into every area of that person's life through accumulated trauma. Addressing the addiction without addressing the root of the problem, leaves that door of relapse open for re-entry. Thankfully, I was able to recover myself from potential disaster or losing my life. Today I am in school learning how to create economic opportunity that enables others to economically survive while completing their steps to recovery - in an environment that is inclusive and with an employment position that keeps families stable. It's not good enough that I recovered. Healing is always more appreciated when we all can heal.

Patience is a virtue that has been forgotten since modern technology was developed. Patience is something that has slowly been filtered out of society with the onset of microwaves, instant products, remote controls, cell phones, and other forms of modern "here and now" capabilities. However patience is also a trait that parents need on the tenth time that they repeat themselves to their children. It is a skill that staffing developers need when they are training a new hire. Patience is a quality that nobody has mastered as well as a school teacher. As a mother, farmer, professional, and student, patience is the key to reducing stress. Allowing time for progress to manifest, provides me with the capabilities to focus on tasks such as homework, another project, and continues to produce new heights of emotional maturity. Without patience, I do not know how anyone in my family could survive. A single mom with a small apartment and all teenagers, we consistently compete for bandwidth, a quiet space to participate in Zoom classes, and to use important resources like the bathroom and car. All members of the household must constantly utilize patience to get along and to get by. Without patience, there is potential for any structural system to fail. If a baker did not have patience, customers would stop buying their bread because it would not be fully cooked. If a mechanic did not have patience, that could cost somebody their life. Partners in a relationship need patience to learn how to succeed with their partner, and parents use patience as a means of loving their children. Our children need to learn patience to maintain functionality in a family structure, and again to get by in school. In closing, patience is a virtue that is necessary for life to function.

Thank you for making this scholarship available to students like me. A growth mindset is a resilient one that focuses on exploring the possibilities and not allowing minor setbacks to become major obstacles in the course of progress. It requires an open mind, positive outlook, and consideration that there may be other options available - when times get rough. In my life, a growth mindset was my resilience. Born and raised with humble beginnings, I witnessed far more violence than most people can fathom. Too young to know what to do about any of it, I remember silently daydreaming about all the different ways matters could be handled that did not resort to violence. However, I did not have the right to be a young vocal female, therefore the growth mindset was born within me. Reality was tough enough. I would have to find another way to make the world a better place. Life became the equivalent of beating a really hard board on a video game: I had to constantly learn new information, new options, new moves to make. I never was competitive with other people, but rather to myself. Each day I challenged myself to make noticeable growth within - as a way to measure my own progress. Life doesn't come with a manual and I didn't have a teacher. Throughout the span of four decades the ideology of the consistent challenge meant that I would never allow myself to fall complacent. Ironically, it was the combination of grit and a growth mindset that convinced me that I could in fact - make the world a better place. Eventually I found ways to help people through creativity; and within that creativity I found more growth.

As a nontraditional student who is graduating with debt, my professional goals are to complete the Advance Business in Technology degree path that I am currently enrolled so that I can utilize my personal goals to help other demographics in my community. In my pursuit of happiness, the goal is to open a business that purchases and sells from skilled artisans in underserved communities, that hires unskilled labor to provide a paid position of professional development, and to utilize the profits from the business to invest into philanthropy that will help me to remove barriers from our community at-large, thus helping to uplift families into a position of sustenance and stability. To many people, these goals seem really high, but to me these goals are attainable because I have been in the position to implement these actions in the past, but after a tragedy hit my family many years ago, I was left as a single parent and my professional qualifications meant nothing without a degree to prove it. Modern professions no longer cared about experience, they wanted a degree. That setback, along with a traumatic brain injury that left me disabled in 2010, turned my world upside down, along with that of my children who suffered with me through years of housing instability, food insecurity, and an early disposition of what it means to sacrifice for one another to succeed. After healing from a craniectomy (brain surgery) that was offered to me in 2012, I decided to enroll in school to meet the professional expectations required of me to obtain substantial employment, but during that process some events happened that inspired me to define my goals because there was one semester where my son and another student lost their financial aid and were in danger of having to drop out of college. After using my student loan to help the other two students - one of them being my own son, I was short on my own necessities during the school semester. Whereas I didn't regret my decision, it shaped my thoughts on determining exactly what I am going to do with this degree, once it is achieved. The goals that I have set for myself have been carefully evaluated to ensure that I can earn enough to maintain my own stability, as well as afford me the position to uplift members of my community to a place of their own sustainability, through offerings of philanthropic activities, employment, and providing a venue for the success of local artisanal producers. These goals cover the supply and demand of products and employment, while allowing me to invest in others who walk similar struggles, therefore strengthening family systems.

Being an American means having the opportunity to engage in the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness defines the pathology toward finding my greatest achievement, although no achievement is guaranteed but that we have a right to follow that path. In my pursuit of happiness, I choose to look for innovation that circumvents poverty - a path that most have never truly achieved, but that their works contributed to pathways that will increase the health and wellness of our nation. Included in this path that I chose, is a wide open study selection - all beneficial to the cause, but only one that we must choose to focus on. For the purpose of focusing my studies in one direction, I chose to major in advanced business in technology because we, as a forward thinking nation, always look into the future. Choosing this degree major leaves many options after graduation although the one that I am looking at would be to open my own business where I am more efficiently able to assist other small businesses through an advanced platform that builds revenues while giving me a second opportunity to assist my community via philanthropy. Along the way the business can provide employment opportunities for unskilled labor, which might only be a total of 3% of the nation, but are consistently the bottom of the social system, and the ones who need gainful employment the most. Using the business to uplift this demographic, I am able to locally uplift my communal region to a position of greater sustenance. This is important to me because I grew up in a household that did not have enough finances to support everyone's necessities. We often ate whatever the food bank was offering, and shared clothes to make it through the week. Our housing was always unstable. The poverty caused the adults to fight, eventually shattering the adults in my family. Unfortunately, this was the popular story in most of my neighborhood, and with the onset of the modern drug epidemic many adults in my life who lost hope, took to addiction leaving my generation lost. Vowing to never repeat the cycles in my adulthood, I studied hard, but the poverty was too deep, leaving me to initially skip college to help my family to get back on their feet by working hard. Later, this choice hurt my own future, because I had children of my own, and after a tragedy left my children without a father, many of the impoverished conditions hit my children almost as hard as it impacted my own childhood. Trying to return to the professional arena after childbirth - an arena that now required a degree, I no longer qualified for the jobs that once sustained us. After undergoing a brain surgery to correct a traumatic brain injury in 2012, I took some time to heal then committed myself to going back to school, to realize the very same dream that I had for most of my life - ensuring that no child went through the impoverished conditions that put my family at risk during my childhood, and again putting my family at risk when I became a single parent. By going to school I can attain that dream of prospering my family while helping others. In many places, I would not have the freedom to care for my community in such a way. But because I bear the red, white, and blue, and live under a constitution that encourages success, I am able to reach out to uplift other families through the guarantee of the pursuit of happiness.

An underrepresented person, group, or population tends to point toward the outliers on a scatterplot. My mother is Hawaiian, German, Irish, and with the Blood of a Slave. My father is Japanese-Prussian-Lenape, out casted by both sides of the family for being American. While I grew up in a Black neighborhood, I went to a White school. Needless to say that we knew how to run fast because we were always the wrong color in every situation and were chased home daily. I grew up in Philadelphia during a time and place where all five of the Rocky movies were filmed, but also enduring an early childhood with Mayor Frank Rizzo - who dressed up police like an Easter Bunny and killed non-European residents, while police committed drive by shootings on Colored communities like us. My adolescence completed with the witnessing of most of the people dearest to my heart, having been victims of inner city violence. I missed my intended first year of college to a coma. During those same formative years, I was given an extensive education for a child at that time and place, about environmental restoration. As a small child, I vowed to get back some native lands to restore the ecosystem to its utopian past. But the truth was that I was in the midst of urban gentrification and those concepts would take miraculous efforts to achieve. Having traveled quite a bit, I used to participate in environmentally restorative efforts in other places as well, just to learn about ecosystems. In my twenties, it simply became a way of life for me, no matter where I was. I do not seek a paid career in conservation, rather I pay for my own tools and volunteer my time in various settings to restore our environment and to save endangered plant habitats. Today I reside in the place of my maternal roots - Hawai'i, and have committed the last eight years to restorative endeavors. I recently purchased a farm in the rainforest where the land is densely populated with invasive species. Rather than utilized an industrial farm approach, I am restoring native plants that ancient Hawaiian history claims to have grown on my physical location, with small garden areas in the open areas. Our land was once abundant with breadfruit - a tree that is known to sequester carbon at 40% higher rates than most other trees, thus combatting climate change. Through my academic journey with University of Hawai'i Maui College, I have learned native botany, tropical agriculture, and have been volunteering with a number of like-minded agencies such as Limu Restoration, Maui Nui Seabird Recovery, and Maui Nui Botanical Gardens. However my degree path is Business and Applied Sciences because I am going to open a business to finance these agencies through philanthropy. So many environmental agencies have been struggling to keep their operations strong. As islanders, we are the first to be affected by climate change. Hawai'i has twelve of the thirteen climate zones throughout the earth. Hawai'i also has the absolute most rare and endangered species throughout the earth as well. As a child of Hawai'i, I couldn't live with myself, if I did not contribute to the solution. My disability prevents me from serving our environment in places where the land is not even, or if the distance is too far. I have neurological disabilities and cannot work a daily schedule. But I have administrative skills, investment skills, and technology skills as well. With my own business, I can hire someone else to work the daily schedule, thus allowing myself to be of greater servitude to the ecosystem that surrounds me.

As a child of two addicts, raised in a community that actively experienced both racial and economic setbacks - thus creating a wealth of mental health issues and addiction, I feel as though decades of firsthand experience has made me an expert at dealing with behavioral health as a whole. With the foundational knowledge that I accumulated during my early years, I set forth in my young adulthood to change the world for the better and felt the need to practice what I had learned in my formative years. I believe that I found an extremely beneficial solution to help with mental health, environmental health, and overall productivity resulting from maintenance of the core spirit of thought. All mental health, addiction, and suicidal issues share a common root of disenfranchisement. Reliance on a pill, group therapies in crammed sessions, and repeating the problem to mental health professionals only postpone the emotional reaction and its impact upon society as a whole, but none of those remedies heal. If we want to end the ever growing demographic of people struggling with mental health, we should strengthen the core of the individual; which can be done in group settings. My experimental groups spanned Pennsylvania, Florida, and Hawai'i landscapes and all of the groups were assembled in environmental restoration, and were referred to as action committees to maintain the dignity of my clients. Through volunteer environmental restoration and using the method of reverse psychology, I was able to provide stability, security, and core confidence. Rather than talk about the problem, I focused on outlining the strengths of the individual until they healed enough to move forward successfully. The success rate was very high, and as a bonus, the environment in that location was restored alongside the person - who now belonged to society.

Sustainable economic diversification seems to be a topic that is taboo to much of the existing corporate industry because it requires companies to think differently and to invest on new technologies that might draw from bottom line profit margins. The greatest opportunity that arises from this dilemma is that the Earth needs sustainability more than ever before, which lends provides ample space for sustainable business models to enter the market. While electric vehicles are a great starting point, barriers such as education and finances prevent small producers from entering the market. Electronic communication solves the paper problem, internet usage is replacing one environmental risk with another: it is slowing down tree cutting and replacing it with microwave radiation, thus still contributing to global warming and cancer. The fact remains that we will soon have an aging demographic that will also need to produce income in supplement of their retirement plans. Investing in sustainable markets solves a plethora of worldly issues from the perspectives of the environment, job retention, and a rising demographic of retirees. Many people think that this concept is crazy, but it is very forward thinking. According to world statistics, fossil fuels will be completely depleted within the next 42 years, putting yet another industry out of business. I am an indigenous cultural practitioner, a farmer, environmentalist, and human resource based entrepreneur. My business model perspective is prioritized by how many issues I can solve with a multifaceted business model. There are solar companies out there, but we are still reliant upon power plants to generate our power, when places such as Florida, desert regions, and areas where there is a lot of sun on depleted lands are prime areas to open solar plants that would sell energy back to the utility commissions. The south alone, could provide for much of the electricity in America without depleting a single natural resource on land. In urban areas, solar panels can be installed as a covered parking structure, and most effectively, new industries such as port-o-potties with lighting can open. The solar industry has a lot to offer and can be implemented anywhere that the sun shines, but most importantly, can make space for new educational programs, economic development, and can open the doors to greater job opportunities by those who are tired of existing options in the work force. Opening solar markets throughout the cruiseline industry can effectively save the environment and the cruiseline companies in the long term cost curves. Having new manufacturers to replace current environmentally detrimental products can shift the entire economy in a sustainable fashion. Another great investment would be to open the hempcrete market for structural development. Hempcrete is mold, tsunami, and tropical storm resistant. The hemp crops turnover four times per year, generating a constant production flow while cleaning the soil down to the top layer of the water table - thus removing hazards from the soils and improving air quality around us. Hempcrete is far sturdier than average concrete and will not deplete the environment in any capacity. This building material can open new and exciting market to generate favorable economic conditions while restoring the environment and fighting climate change. I could go on and on about remedies that serve as a defense toward existing problems, while opening a plethora of new and exciting employment opportunities that speak to the younger generations - our future workforce. As a farmer, single mother, environmentalist, educator and entrepreneur, I spend a great deal of my time fostering critical thinking growth models with teenagers. When those teenagers express their concerns to me, I remember thinking the same thing when I was young and environmental conditions were not nearly as bad as they are today. Furthermore, we live on an island that relies on a barge to import almost 90% of our consumer goods, and an economy that is reliant upon tourism - both unsustainable industries. Investment in a sustainable direction saves the long term implications of unsustainable industries and generates a new system of wealth that incorporates a complete vision of the future within its business model.

After decades of growing food in pots as a renting tenant, my family went homeless in 2019, which spiked our food bill to the thousands, per month. Determined to rise above our financial status, we remained in school, maintaining ourselves during the early morning hours on campus. Stating that we were not going to ever go through that reality again, I went to an agricultural program to ensure my knowledge of farming, developed a farm plan, and as of April 2021 became official farmers on our own land. Although I am not currently in school for farming, it is because I need to learn how to execute my business plan to continue to grow food security for my island community. During Covid, when the barge stopped coming, our entire island population was at risk. I cannot allow that to become our community's normal circumstance. Successes have come in the form of plant donations from other farmers and through at-risk teenage volunteers who learn agriculture and self-esteem while working with me on the weekends. We chose to do the entire 6.36 acre farm by hand - partially due to lack of finances, and partially to us wanting to experience farming in the way that our ancestors have done for thousands of years. Since April, we've been able to clear about 2.25 acres of heavily invasive rainforest - replacing it with a combination of endangered native species and food plants/trees. Everything that is cut down, is mulched right back into the soil. We have been able to obtain, nurture and plant about twenty-nine food species, while maintaining about 63% native species in the areas that have already been converted. We have medicinal plants/trees such as durian, soursop, aloe, and noni. Our team consists of myself, my three biological children who are teens, and about a dozen other teenagers who are struggling through something in life. We are battling climate change through carbon sequestration with breadfruit trees and snake plants throughout the planted areas. Inga (also known as ice cream bean) provides nitrogen fixation throughout the growth areas, and vetiver provides the benefits of soil retention. For edible use, our farm also grows jackfruit, potatoes, yams, guava, garlic, chives, spinach, kale, carrots, white peppercorn, figs, sugar, durian, sapodilla, mountain/water apples, avocados, coconuts, papaya, candlenuts, and several varieties each of pineapple, lilikoi, taro, berries, gourds, bananas, and gingers. With our newly cleared field we are adding in cacao, lufah, tomatoes, varietal melons, corn, plantain, arrowroot, and teas. Our goal is to grow a wealth of food, to make added-value foods to cover costs, to donate abundantly to the food bank, and to use my business degree to open our farm store, as a means to serve our community through philanthropic relationships. Struggles come in the form of a lack of hand tools and structures for the rainforest downpours. Our soil is among the most healthy, fertile soil in the world. We have worms in every scoop of soil, and mushrooms automatically happen with the rain. Our dog keeps the wild pigs from eating our harvests. We have very little machine maintenance because most of our tools are purely hand tools, with the exception of a chainsaw, high functioning flashlights, and Sawzall. We plant primarily from the food that we eat; bypassing nursery and seed costs. Nothing comes easy, but since we are practicing the experiences of our ancestors - who were fearless navigators and staunch caretakers of the environment as a means of sustainability, we are dedicated to our cause. You can view our progress at this link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLicbJlYLcbTQqtvMGFMOB_5Vf5IYN34N7