I have come to believe that every human is desperate to be useful, to do something in service of someone or someplace. If that's true, then asking for help, leaning on someone else's generosity, is, itself, a generous act.

I've always had a hard time asking for help. If I couldn't immediately return the favor or pay someone what I thought they were worth, I just didn't ask.

​But a few years ago I had to, because for the first time, not asking wasn't an option.

On August 9th, 2023 at around 8pm, I was standing at our baseyard at ʻUlupalakua Ranch watching the glow of the Lāhainā fires and smelling the smoke from pastures burning all across Upcountry Maui, and the phone rang. It was our amazing friends, Mark and Amanda Noguchi, of Chef Hui. In two days, they were cooking for thousands of displaced families out of the Maui College culinary kitchen, and they needed 3,500 pounds of ground, enough for 14,000 bowls of chili.

​I said we would make it happen and hung up the phone. Then I quickly did the math and didn't like the answer.

There was just no way we could get that many deer in one night by ourselves, even if everything went perfect.​ We needed help.

And the help we needed wasn't what you might think. Most of what we do is highly skilled work that takes years to learn. But the skills that were going to prevent us from harvesting enough deer were the simple ones, the ones anyone could do if they were willing. Carry deer. Cut meat. We didn't need experts. We just needed people willing to do the work.​

So, for the first time in a long time, we asked for help.

I let our team know we would take anyone who wanted to join us. The work would be hard and unpaid, but they would be put to good use.​

And then they showed up. People dropped everything and just showed up out of the dark and into our team meetings. Friends, neighbors, family. They came from as close as down the street and as far as across the channel. They arrived with no idea of what a night of work would look like other than carrying deer and cutting meat.​

And they did. And for the first time in our company's history, we harvested 100 deer in a single night. 3,500 lbs of ground for 14,000 bowls of chili.

We were grateful, of course. But so were they.​

And in the exhaustion of that night and the days and nights that followed, I realized something.​

I have come to believe that every human is desperate to be useful, to do something in service of someone or someplace. If that's true, then asking for help, leaning on someone else's generosity, is, itself, a generous act.

So we kept asking.

Some of our tiredest friends—Jon Bier, Ross Deutsch & Jeff Byers w/our Holo ʻAi Coordinator, Temoani.

In the years since, almost a hundred people have come to work alongside us—community members, industry friends, mission partners. Not one of them came as a visitor. They came as team members, held to our team's standards, and they exhausted themselves in service of this place and its people. In Hawai'i, there's a name for people like that. They are called Maka Luhi. Tired Eyes.

Until now, this invitation was extended to people we knew, people whose support we are so grateful for. But the people who have helped the most, who carry our mission forward every day, are the people we've never met.

​Our customers.

Because every order you place matters. Every order has a real impact on this place and its people.​

And if we could invite every single customer, especially our long-time members, we would. We can't. But we can invite one customer and their guest.

Phillip Frankland Lee, not on vacation.

This will not be a vacation. You will be held to the same standard as everyone who came before you, and you will hopefully leave the same way they did.

​Tired. Useful. Grateful.​

Entries close July 2. Everything you need is on the Invitation page.

We are excited to meet and work alongside you.