Stacy Sproat-Beck grew up on the north shore of Kaua?i in a family that farmed and fished—she was literally raised by the land and sea around her and that childhood gave her a very personal understanding that the earth cared for her and made her survival possible. It taught her, she says, that we need to take great care of the earth so that it can take care of us. It also taught her to be attuned to the health of the resources around her—an awareness that has only grown over the last two decades in her work as executive director of the Waip? Foundation.
“I’ve been working with this land day in and day out for twenty years now so I feel like I understand the seasons, I understand the way the water flows on the land, where it goes when it sinks into the ground, where it comes from when it falls on the earth, the creatures and insects that are in the soil that help to make it fertile so that it grows food for us…. it’s just given me a really deep and holistic understanding of all the interconnectedness of nature.”
That understanding influences Sproat-Beck’s decisions every single day.
“Everything I do, from buying organic food to recycling to trying to use gas without ethanol to growing my own food organically and connecting kids with the land and teaching my own kids to be connected to the land—to me all of that is aloha ??ina because it’s acting with the earth in mind first.”