Kimokeo Foundation
The vision of Kimokeo Foundation is a lasting legacy of preserving and perpetuating our Native Hawaiian culture, language, people and environment.
Founded in September 2015, Kimokeo Foundation was created by Native Hawaiian, Kimokeo Kapahulehua, as a platform in which he could leave a lasting legacy that would continually emulate his passions to preserve and perpetuate the Hawaiian culture within today’s generation and generations yet to come. The Foundation is centered around Kimokeo’s love for the people and culture of Hawai‘i and the land and sea that surrounds his island home, Maui, Hawai‘i.
Kimokeo Kapahulehua has been well-known throughout Hawai‘i, especially on Maui, for his tireless efforts to preserve and perpetuate his Hawaiian culture and the land and sea. For decades, he has selflessly dedicated his time toward serving Maui’s communities and protecting its land from the mountains to the sea. His accomplishments are vast, spanning from being heavily involved in Hawaiian outrigger canoe paddling and voyaging, to the preservation of Native Hawaiian forests, to the revitalization of an ancient Hawaiian fishpond to educating thousands of youth about the Hawaiian culture and its practices, to raising money for cancer survivors. Kimokeo has touched the lives and hearts of an immeasurable number of people with the expectation that they only take the aloha that they have received from him and share it with others.
After spending decades volunteering for many individual non-profit and community organizations which share the same dreams as his, Kimokeo decided that he would be most effective in serving his community, culture and environment by consolidating his passions into a single foundation with the intent that it become a legacy of giving. Thus, Kimokeo Foundation was founded in September 2015 to encompass all of Kimokeo Kapahulehua’s interests into a single entity in which all of his family, friends and followers can support in perpetuity.
Joylynn Paman offers a well-rounded cultural perspective to the Kimokeo Foundation and has a Hawaiian family history on Maui that lasts for generations. In 1994, she graduated from Kamehameha and continued her education at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo where she received her Bachelors in Marine Science with an emphasis in Hawaiian Language and Hawaiian Studies in 1998. For over 25 years, she has been fluent in the Hawaiian language and she and her husband are currently raising their three children in Hawaiian immersion schools. Mrs. Paman spends a majority of her time caring for her family and volunteering for Maui’s Hawaiian immersion programs.
She has been Executive Director of ‘Ao‘ao O Nā Loko I‘a O Maui, a non-profit organization that is revitalizing a Native Hawaiian fishpond in South Maui, for 11 years and has been associated with this organization since 1997. She has also served environmental education leadership roles at Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, Maui Invasive Species Committee and NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. Throughout her work and volunteerism, Mrs. Paman enjoys combining her love for the Hawaiian culture and language with the environment. She brings many non-profit leadership skills to the Kimokeo Foundation and became Executive Director of the Kimokeo Foundation in September 2019.