Hope, Kuleana, and Climate Resilience
The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi’s 2025 summer fundraising letters should be hitting your mailboxes any day now. This summer’s letter from our Executive Committee member, Kaikea Nakachi, shares a powerful message of hope, kuleana, and intergenerational resilience—inviting you to invest in a future led by the next generation carrying forward ancestral knowledge to tackle the climate crisis.
Please check your mail or read the letter below and make the most generous gift you are able to before the month’s end. 100% of your donation will stay in the islands and go straight to our grassroots work to protect Hawaiʻi’s ʻāina, wai, and communities, ensuring a livable and equitable future for generations to come.
Aloha,
Kaikea Nakachi and his father Mike Nakachi planting coral pieces in Kahuwai Bay Coral Restoration. Photo: Liquid Cosmos Divers
As someone who is 31 years old, my generation will inherit the climate crisis. Luckily, we will also inherit a rich legacy of aloha ʻāina practices and knowledge vital for solutions.
I have witnessed dramatic changes to the Hawaiʻi I grew up loving. The once tranquil shores of my birth are crowded and eroding. The rich waters that fed my ancestors for generations are overfished and bleaching. The diverse native forests that pulsed with bird songs are quiet and shrinking as they are replaced by invasive species.
But as a young Hawaiian scientist and cultural practitioner, I carry on knowing that the knowledge our kūpuna left us isn't just our inheritance—it's our roadmap to survival.
We’re not waiting for permission to lead. Across Hawaiʻi, young people are restoring fishponds, replanting forests, taking on leadership roles, and standing up for policy change. Guided by Indigenous knowledge and strengthened by community organizing, we are taking our future into our own hands—and we’re just getting started.
At the Sierra Club Hawaiʻi Chapter, we’re creating spaces where youth can learn from community organizers, cultural practitioners, and each other—while adding our own power and ideas. The intersection of Indigenous knowledge, youth activism, and community organizing is building an unstoppable force for change.
Will you invest in this movement by making a meaningful gift today?
Your support will directly fund our work to:
Empower youth leaders through our new ʻŌpio Organizing for Change program, equipping the next generation with the knowledge and tools they need to defend our environment and carry forward Hawaiʻi’s rich legacy of direct action.
Advocate for policies at all levels of government that will not only ensure our climate resiliency but are rooted in traditional ecological knowledge.
Protect our resources that are critical to Hawaiʻi’s cultural integrity, native ecosystems, and community well-being from powerful corporate and military interests with every tool we have from the courtrooms to the streets.
Every time I see my peers carrying on the practices of their kūpuna or sharing their voice and knowledge with decision makers, I’m filled with hope. We are refusing to accept climate defeat. Instead we are shouldering our kuleana and continuing to nurture our heritage.
Please consider making a gift today of $25, $50, $100, $200, or whatever you can to stand with us. Your support will help grow a future where our children can swim in thriving reefs, drink clean water, and harvest from abundant ʻāina and kai—just as our kūpuna did for centuries.
Your gift isn’t just a donation, it’s an investment in a resilient future.
Me ke aloha,
Kaikea Nakachi
Executive Committee Member
Sierra Club Hawaiʻi Chapter
PS. The future isn’t something we’re waiting for—it’s something we’re building now. Stand with us by making a donation today. 100% of your gift will stay in Hawaiʻi.