Pet Plants for Kupuna’s (Elders)

Kara worked on her civic engagement project in the spring of 2021, when Covid rates were very high and before vaccines became available. She was very concerned about the plight of seniors who were extremely isolated at the time.

She wrote “The purpose of this project is to improve the mental and physical health of senior citizens in care homes. Coronavirus began about a year ago which had a large effect on the citizens within these homes. I donated 75 plants in total to residents at the Yukio Okutsu Veterans State Home and Hilo Medical Center’s Long Term Care facility. Closer to the beginning of the pandemic, the veteran’s home endured bad management and in result, lost a lot of resident’s lives due to the virus (The American Legion). This state home has then improved and acquired better administrative staff that has controlled the spread of the virus. Coronavirus has had an impact on everyone’s lives but often — in times like these — we do not think about our elders. My hope is to brighten up senior citizen’s days and give them a sense of accomplishment through the caretaking of succulent plants. According to the website Psychology Today, house plants can improve mental and emotional health in a number of ways. These include stress reduction, reduced symptoms of depression, memory retention, fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and much more. I wanted to ensure that these plants coming from a local business therefore I reached out to Mr. Troy Shigenaga of Novelty Greens for the donation of plants. You will see further on into this report that I did credit this business in hopes to give them a few more customers in the future. The donation of succulents was chosen because it is a fairly easy and low maintenance plant. I believe that I did achieve my goals in impacting these resident’s lives at least for the time they are able to keep the succulents alive. When I went to drop off the plants, I met a resident who happened to be waiting outside, and he was so excited that he insisted on choosing his plant at that moment. That interaction had already made me happy to know that someone is enjoying my project.”

Kara has the following Tips for Future Students:

• If you are submitting for a mini-grant, plan out your supplies or possibly purchase your
  things before submitting
  • I did a guesstimate and ended up having to purchase additional supplies or not
    allocating enough money
  • In addition to this, I had to make additional trips after my initial visit to stores for
    supplies because I didn’t buy enough materials. I suggest planning everything out to
    save time on going shopping again.
• I wish I could have provided more plants to additional facilities or included more supplies to
  take care of the plants (spray bottles to water, fertilizer, trays to catch the water)
  • I did not have enough funds to purchase these additional supplies and I thought
    about it too late into the project
• I have a few small things that helped me
  • Rubber bands keep the cellophane on really well
  • Clear cellophane is too thin and breaks too easily when you try to maneuver it around
    the pots
  • A thicker ribbon does a better job at covering the rubber bands
  • Cardstock is a great paper option for the cards as they are sturdy
  • I printed my cards in a business card size and cut them out in one strip so I could
    fold them in half and create a double sided card
• Reach out to any businesses or care homes because you will never know who will donate to
  you or accept your donations
  • In process planning my original project, I reached out to about 4 local plant nurseries
    and some of them responded back
• Always remember to give credit to others who helped you
  • I made sure to include novelty greens in my card because without their donation, this
    project wouldn’t have been possible
  • I also updated the owner, Mr. Shigenaga with photos of me at the care facilities to
    show him that I did in fact follow through with the donation