Jamie-Lyn Agor

86-130 Hoaha St. Wai'anae, HI 96792

(808) 498-6897

jla2@hawaii.edu

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Field Experience
Food Science Human Nutrition 492

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Mākeke Farmer’s Market

Moulika Ann Hitchens

Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center

86-260 Farrington Hwy.

Wai'anae, HI 96792

(617) 981-1802

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 Table of Contents

Future Plans………………………………………………………………………………………3

About Mākeke……………………………………………………………………………………4

Personnel…………………………………………………………………………………………5

The Learning Plan……………………………………………………………………………..…7

Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities for Growth…………………………………………12

Being a Professional and Giving Back as a Professional…………………………………….…13

Academic Application and Other Students……………………………………………….…….14

The Next Steps…………………………………………………………………………….……17

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Future Plans
In my future, after graduation, I plan to travel to different states. I hope to get an

internship with Disney so that I am able to experience something that is out of state. Hawai‘i will

always be my home as I was raised here, but I have yet to experience what other states are like. I

am excited for new challenges and adventures, and the Disney College Internship program would

allow me to become a more well-rounded person. Through the Disney College Internship

program I will have the chance to meet and serve different people, live alone in a different state,

work in a positive environment, and grow as an individual through the different job opportunities

offered. All of this will help me develop as an individual and increase my self-reliance. Being

able to work in different environments will allow me to experience the differences between

communities, with that experience I might be able to bring back ideas to improve the community

I grew up in.

After I successfully complete the Disney College Internship Program, I plan to come

back to Hawai‘i. I see myself being able to utilize the skills I have developed through the

internship program to help families just like mine, to be successful in raising health-conscious

children, despite the financial burdens many of them must overcome. I already enjoy being able

to help my own family on a small scale to be able to make healthier choices, being able to do that

through my career would be worthwhile and fulfilling to me. My career goal is to combine the

knowledge gained from my studies, work, and field experience and share it with my family and

my community. Completing my field experience at Mākeke, the Farmer’s Market operated by

Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, I learned about different programs that are aimed

at supporting the community that I grew up in. I am thankful for Mākeke for allowing me to

learn and provide me ways to benefit my community.


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About Mākeke
Mākeke is a program that is operated by the Wai’anae Coast Comprehensive Health

Center, which is a non-profit organization.The Mākeke office is located in Wai'anae on the

Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center’s campus. Mākeke aims to aid the health of low-

income populations and to support local farms by promoting to eat healthier and to eat local.

Mākeke offers many programs that includes the Farmer’s Market, EBT (Electronic Benefits

Transfer) Double Bucks, Keiki Prescription Program, and the Elderly Nutrition Program.

The Mākeke’s Farmer’s Markets are aimed to promote local-farms and to also make their

produce to be more accessible and convenient for the community. Mākeke holds three market at

three different locations. The locations and times are at the Wai'anae mall on Saturdays, the

Comprehensive on Tuesdays, and at Kapolei High School on Thursdays. One of the most

successful programs that Mākeke offers at the Farmer’s Market is EBT Double Bucks. This

program partners with an external program called EBT which allows state welfare departments to

issue benefits through a magnetically encoded payment card, used in the United States. This

program allows EBT qualifying populations to purchase fruits/vegetables/meats/eggs/honey/poi

at half the cost, a program only available at the Mākeke Farmer’s Markets. This helps to ease the

financial difficulties while also supporting local farms. Another successful program that Mākeke

offers is the Keiki prescription program, it is used to provide free fruits and vegetables up to $24/

month for children from the age of two to seventeen. This is another program that helps to ease

the financial difficulties while also supporting local farms. Similar to the Elderly Nutrition

Program where they offer vouchers to help financially aid the elderly to buy fruits and vegetables

at the farmer’s market.

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Personnel
My supervisor Moulika Hitchens, is the Community Food Systems Manager at the Wai'anae

Coast Comprehensive Health Center. Before then, Moulika was the founder & a Cambodian Cooking

Instructor of Koliyan where she spent three years managing the daily operations of a Koliyan, a vegan

Cambodian catering company. She taught nutrition and cultural based cooking classes. Before leading up

to Koliyan, Moulika spent about a year as a Family Case Coordinator of the Health Federation of

Philadelphia where she provided intensive home visitation and case management serving families affected

by substance abuse under the Child Abuse and Prevention Treatment Act in Philadelphia. Before working

for the Health Federation of Philadelphia Moulika volunteered as a Philadelphia Health Corps Member

for Americorps for Social Services where she provided home visitation and family support to ensure

safety, permanency, and well-being of pregnant and postpartum HIV positive women and their children in

Philadelphia. Before her volunteer service for Americorps, Moulika was the CEO and co-founder of

Hensor Inc., which is a components manufacturing start-up company, specializing in lasers, medical

equipment, and scientific instruments. Moulika’s experience had led her to her career at Mākeke.

Mākeke’s entry level requirements include a drivers license and a high school diploma. In

addition to skills and talents, nonprofits also usually look for candidates who care about the

issues they work on. In business, the ultimate goal is to make a profit. For nonprofits, the goal is

to have a positive effect in the world. Although there is not much opportunity for advancement,

since it operates as a non-profit and more for the community than the business, there are a lot of

opportunities for hands-on learning and experience, instead.

Moulika is the Community Food Systems Manager. This position is responsible to

integrate sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste

management in order to enhance the environmental, economic and social health of the

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community of Wai’anae. As a team, the Mākeke staff all play a critical role to the success of

Mākeke.

Alicia Higa is the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center’s Director of Health

Promotion. With a focus on public health, Alicia worked in Wai’anae in this position for the last

12 years. For the past 8 years she has successfully led three weekly farmer’s markets known as

Mākeke Farmer’s Market, as well as other successful projects. In her career she addresses food

access and availability, health disparities, and the community food systems of Wai'anae by

setting up events and programs like the Wai'anae Eat Local Challenge, the EBT Double Bucks

Program, the Keiki Produce Prescription Program, and the Elderly Nutrition Voucher Program.

Kahau is the Research Assistant, in this position she contributes in many ways to the

research project, Kahau is responsible for literature reviews, collecting and analyzing data. She

also prepares materials for the submission to granting foundations. She also takes part in

managing projects as well.

Nicki is the Program Coordinator, in this position she runs the Mākeke Farmers Market

Program. Nicki works with staff members, budgets, raise funds, and procedures to ensure the

implementation and success of programs. Asides from the Farmer’s Market, Nicki also has many

other projects that she takes part in.

Lastly Malia Lema and Kai work in the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependance.

They encourage people to quit smoking. This program gives free healthier options that include

nicotine replacement therapy, medication, support groups, and education on tobacco use. Mailia

and Kai meets with clients on a one-on-one basis as well as conducts classes.

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The Learning Plan
Taking responsibility was one of the main learning objectives for my Mākeke field

experience. To showcase this, I decided that a food demonstration would be adequate. To be able

to organize a job that is completely new to me and to monitor my own time and effort. This

objective will give me experience in taking initiative in organizing a plan. I was able to do a food

demonstration at the Wai'anae Eat Local Challenge. While there I was able to perform a

quantitive study of canned pumpkin and local pumpkin in a pumpkin spiced smoothie. I was able

to see if people could tell the difference and which they liked better. Turns out people can tell the

difference and also prefers the local pumpkin instead of the canned pumpkin.

Another learning objective I wanted to focus on was to learn more about the job and the

work that the Mākeke staff does. Since there is a position opening for program assistant, I

thought that observing and practicing the role of program assistant would be a good way to

tackle this objective. A big part of this job description requires you to organize the Mākeke

Farmer’s Market. Being able to observe Nicki and take notes on the process would help me

understand the steps to organize it. Maybe one day I will be able to organize a Farmer’s Market

on my own.

Practicing interpersonal skills is also another learning objective that I wanted to focus on

while at Mākeke. I feel that by learning the Keiki Prescription Program and the Double Bucks

program I would be able to showcase what I know about the program and be able to inform

people who are interested in the programs. I’m also able to connect to people in the program and

I am able to share ideas to maybe improve the programs.

In the beginning of my field experience, my supervisor and I felt that I achieved my

objective and goals when I was able to perform the food demonstration. I was successful in

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organizing a smoothie booth. With my goal of at least 20 participants I was able to practice my

communication skills while also connecting with the Mākeke customers. The customers and I

was able to discuss the differences between a local pumpkin and a canned pumpkin. The findings

intrigued the Mākeke staff, the customers, and myself. During the preparation stage, I felt that it

was a challenge to put together a booth that was on a very short notice. With a week before the

event, I received a lot of help and support from the Mākeke staff. I was able to gather all the

materials and supplies in order to set up a food demonstration for the Wai'anae Eat Local

Challenge. There were some faulty situations that could have been avoided with better

preparations. For instance, I had run out of the ingredient vanilla extract and my generator had

also run out of gas in the last hour. Other than that my supervisor and I believe that the booth was

a success.

When offered the position of program assistant, I was eager to learn about what that

position encompasses, and how I would be best suited for the job. I wondered what roles the

program assistant does and I learned who currently takes that position now. Nicki was the stand-

in program assistant while they waited to hire another person to fill that job. I learned that the

program assistant’s biggest task was to run the Farmer’s markets. Every week there are 3

Farmer’s Markets at 3 different locations. There is a Tuesday Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive

Market, a Thursday Kapolei High School Market, and a Saturday Wai'anae Mall Market. All

three markets are organized by Nicki and I had the pleasure to participate at two of the three

locations. I was also able to participate in post-market operations at the office. At the office I was

able reconcile the account, organize receipts, and vouchers, and send them over to accounting. I

feel that a lot more goes into the position of program assistant but I was able to experience a little

sample of it.

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 Another learning objective that I wanted to focus on was the Double Bucks program. The

Double Bucks Program is an amazing program for people who have low-income. It helps people

with EBT get more fruits and vegetables that come from local farms. For Mākeke, I was required

to learn and explaining the Double Bucks program to customers. At times it felt difficult because

people sometimes needed it to be explained in a different way. I learned that using visuals was

one way to help with understanding as well as speaking slowly and clearly. The pace of

explaining the program made a difference because it allowed people to process it as well as ask

more questions about it. The more questions that I was able to answer the more I was able to edit

my script when explaining the program to the next person. The more I was able to explain it, the

more I was able to improve. As for post-market, I was able to collect Double Bucks and observe

Nicki cash out participating vendors.

The last learning objective that I had the chance to participate in was the Keiki

Prescription Program. The Keiki Prescription program began in the last bits of my 100 hour

internship. I began to help Cherese (a graduate student volunteering at Mākeke) with the

workload by being able to take prescriptions and give vouchers and surveys. I was able to do all

the components like explaining how to get the next voucher by completing the survey, as well

completing the paperwork in order to keep a log of the program. I was also able to watch

Cherese do interviews after each family used all 3 vouchers at the Farmer’s Markets.

The experience I had with Mākeke had only positive outcomes. I enjoyed learning as

much as I could about the organization and how it is able to help so many people on the west-

coast. I love that my family is a part of this community and that it is being represented by

wonderful non-profits like Mākeke. I experienced a community of people making an effort to

support local although it is more expensive than going to the store and buying cheaper. Mākeke

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makes it more affordable to buy from our local farms instead of stores that bring in shipped

goods. I was able to experience bringing home locally grown foods.

My family has a hard time supporting local famers because it is more expensive and less

convenient than going to the store. My family prioritizes quantity and convenience over quality.

Tamura’s for my family is really convenient because it is near-by and they are expected to have

certain items in stock. Costco also offers quantity at a good price which my family really

depends on. Even when bringing home vegetables from the farmer’s market, my father and

mother enjoys them but usually they go to waste because they prefer the pre-packed salads that

conveniently come in a bag. To counter this I made pre-packed mixed greens as well. As much as

I wish this would encourage my family to try local greens they would not make the switch due to

convenience and pricing. The only thing that was successful in my family was snacking foods

like apples, guacamole with chips, cut up cucumber, caprese salads, avocado toast, etc. These are

all things I prepared for them hoping that they would take a liking to it, and maybe make their

own or buy their own one day. They started buying costco’s apples but with every step, I am

proud that they are making healthier choices as well as thinking about their wellbeing. Although

my family is making more health-conscious choices and choosing the right foods, I still feel that

local farms can provide us with better quality food than store bought food. Mākeke has given me

the opportunity to at least introduce my family to local products. I am unsure if my family can

tell the quality difference of if they are financially limited. I will be going to the farmers markets

on my families behalf to provide them better quality food, and maybe one day, they will notice

the difference.

With all my goals and objectives that I set for myself, I felt that they were realistic,

specific, and challenging. The objectives were really challenging when it came to time. For

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example, with my food demonstration, the menu was changed about three days before the

demonstration day. It was challenging to figure out something else that I could do that would fit

the goals of the Wai'anae Eat Local Challenge event. Thankfully my supervisor encouraged

creative thoughts and ideas and it was not long before a pumpkin spice smoothie idea popped up

just in time for the Fall season. As for program manager, the goals to practice the role was very

realistic, but also very short on time. It was challenging for time to allow me to experience every

part of the role. I was unable to see the planning that goes into a market as well as set one up

with Nicki. I was hoping to showcase my learning by setting up a small market, completely on

my own. With more time, I believed it would have been obtainable. While participating in the

markets, I was able to observe how the Markets are run, who the vendors are, how to enforce

rules in the market, collecting or paying out money, as well as post-market office duties.

There were also things that I learned which were unanticipated. When working at the

Farmer’s Market the EBT device stopped working and I found out that there is a manual way to

process EBT transactions. There are manual vouchers and a number to call to coach you through

the process in order to get approval. I was able to process EBT transactions in this way when the

EBT device failed. The faulty device had helped me gain more independence when working at

the market.

I also unanticipated learning about all the local vendors that participated in the markets. I

was able to learn that we have a cheese production company in Wai’anae with Naked Cow, I also

learned that we have an egg farm. I was also able to chat with the Rotary club about the different

projects that they have going on to serve the community. I also learned a lot about farms and the

fruits and vegetables that are local and not local. I unanticipated that there were so many

sustainable areas in Wai'anae and I am glad to know that it is being supported by the community.

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Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities for Growth
My strengths that was appreciated by Supervisor as well as the rest of the Mākeke staff

was the positive aura that I brought with me to the work place. I enjoy that I can exhibit a “can-

do” attitude and show them that I am up for any task. I was always willing to help knowing that

it was an opportunity to learn. One of my weakness was communication. There were some issues

with not being able share my goals with my supervisor and I think the main problem was not

knowing if it was possible to accomplish. Given that I could talk to my supervisor, I felt that a lot

more could have been possible. I felt like I wanted to just be as helpful as possible, and my

learning came second. My weakness of communication came from my unpreparedness, this

really affected my experience at Mākeke. With proper planning I felt that I could have both

learned more and helped more.

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Being a Professional and Giving Back as a Professional
It is important to show support as a mentor, Moulika had shown me respect, and support

for all my ideas. She was very encouraging and very rewarding as well. She was positive,

inclusive, and she encouraged the best out of me, and was everything I could ask for in a mentor.

One way that I could give back in the future, is to participate in being an active community

member by purchasing local and supporting local farms. If I am able to get a position at Mākeke

then I could give back by coming up with more creative ideas for the market and ways to make

the Farmer’s Market better. If I was to become a supervisor in that field I would definitely model

myself after Moulika and be as supportive and as encouraging as she.

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Academic Application and Other Students
I felt that the Science of Human Nutrition played a very important role in understanding

how food can impact the body. I also understand what food can deliver to our bodies and how

vitamin and minerals play a role. I also felt that public health helped me understand people in

different environments and how income can influence different choices. The most beneficial

class I experienced was the “Intro to food preparation” class. I learning hands-on things that I

can immediately apply. Developing a relation with food while in a school setting was very

beneficial to understanding that food can be multi-purposeful. I used to only look at food as

being a delicious component for bringing people together, I now know that it is a creative way to

get nutrients into your body for you body to be completely functional, it also has an impact on

mood and the way people go on about their day, I found this super interesting. Classes in

anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, and chemistry has also played a few roles in understanding,

but nothing quite applies directly to the role I had at Mākeke. I was able to showcase some fun

facts about nutrition but I was mostly able to learn instead of apply knowledge about fruits and

vegetables. I learned about where the produce came from, and about the importance of produce

coming from local farms, instead of overseas. I learned how much impact the preservatives and

chemicals used to morph food into an ideal image, is used to sway consumers into buying more

store bought produce.

I think this field experience would be beneficial for other students in this department to

take a part in because they would be able to give back to the community while also learning how

to be professional. More minds will also open the opportunity to possibly share some ideas to

improve the program. They would also be able to participate in bringing a whole community

together by promoting to eat local and to make healthier decisions. They would also specifically

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learn about the locals on the west-coast and how it is difficult for low-income populations to

make healthier choices. Without the encouragement of the EBT Double Bucks program, I believe

that people would be more inclined to save more money by heading to a fast-food restaurant

instead. Programs like these would be valuable for other students so that they get to experience

what it is like to work with a community that is low-income and has high health disparities.

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The Next Steps
After graduation I feel the need to travel and see whats out there. I want to be able to

experience living outside of Hawai‘i and to see what knowledge that would bring me. After

participating in the Disney College Program I want to come back to Oahu to find a job working

closely with the community and food. I want to further my education with Nutrition and the

academic application. I want to experience hands on learning with Mākeke. I will apply to the

Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center at the Wellness Center when I get back in order to

further my career with the community and nutrition.

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