Keiki ages 12 to 18 were fully engaged Saturday as they learned how to skin, dress and butcher pigs, lamb and chickens at Kona Vocational.
Spencer Baker, pastor of Big Island Baptist Church and chaplain for the Hawaii Police Department, has had a dream to provide vocational training to West Hawaii’s youth and on Saturday the young adults learned the skill of butchering animals.
“We are teaching them about the animals’ anatomy, how to skin, break down and package the meat,” said Baker.
The animals, sourced by local farmers, taught the kids that meat doesn’t magically appear wrapped in the grocery store.
After an introduction to the art of butchering, the kids got hands on experience skinning, gutting and breaking down cuts of pork and lamb that were slaughtered earlier in the day. They also learned how to humanely slaughter chickens, pluck the feathers, remove innards and butcher them.
The kids also learned the flavor of the meat is dependent on the animal’s diet.
“A pig that’s been eating mac nuts, avocados and guava is going to taste a lot different than one that has just been foraging on hapuu (fern) and other greens,” explained one of the instructors.
The kids came from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some came from hunting families while others had never seen an animal butchered. They all agreed the class was very interesting.
Dash, one of the students, had just finished his turn skinning the pig.
“This is crazy,” he said. “One of these days, I will go hunting and will know what to do.”
Another student, Tyler has been hunting most of his life.
“I kinda taught myself,” he said of field dressing animals. “I did it the way I thought would work, but now I will get more meat on my next one.”
Ryker said the class was very interesting. Although he has never been hunting, he said “I’d do it now if I ever had to.”
Baker has been holding classes every six weeks, introducing keiki to the trades.
His ambitious goal is to establish a two-year, nationally accredited vocational school teaching welding, framing, tile, masonry and sheet rock among other skills, including small business accounting and marketing. To realize that dream, he will need financing and a suitable location.
“We are praying for a beneficiary,” he said.
Because his effort is completely volunteer driven and reliant on donations, he doesn’t expect the reality for another five years. Although he knows grant money is available for such an endeavor, he neither has the time or expertise to secure that stream of funding.
“We would love to have a volunteer grant writer find us funding,” he said.
Both Baker and his brother Jason, who is instrumental in the program, have extensive construction backgrounds and want to create a conduit to local companies for skilled laborers. At Saturday’s class, they showed off the skills they learned in their youth while hunting for game.
“Construction companies are fully on-board,” he said, noting he has had interest from many companies who would like to hire graduates.
He envisions the program to be available to high school juniors and seniors as alternative classes, or full-time for high school graduates.
For now, he is holding workshops every six weeks for keiki ages 12 to 18 years-old at the church located at the old Makua Lani School campus in Holualoa. He hopes to spark their interest and imagination and get them out of the house.
“If we had more funding, we could do more. This is purely a church-volunteer driven program,” he said.
Their first endeavor was to build three chicken coops. The finished coops, along with chickens donated by local farmers, went home to three lucky families. Next keiki were exposed to heavy equipment operations and safety, including learning how to tie down a load and getting the opportunity to run excavators.
In December, the kids made cutting boards from scraps of koa, ohia, pine and other woods.
Kona Vocational’s March project will be building picnic tables and benches and in May the kids will be building sheds, which will be donated to the school’s neighbors. He will be sending out a survey to the kids’ parents to see what they are interested in for future events.
The program is run on a shoestring budget with volunteers from the church. Baker said he was able to secure some donations of tools, however, each workshop costs the ministry at least $5,000. But that’s money well worth the investment.
“It’s about teaching them life lessons,” said Baker.
Volunteers willing to share their mana‘o (wisdom), businesses seeking to sponsor the program or provide materials or those wishing to donate to Kona Vocational or sign up for a future workshop visit konavocational.com.
“We love our community and we love our kids,” said Baker. “We plan on doing this many years to come.”
