OUR STORY
Aloha! Welcome!
We met in Kauai in 2020 with our connection rooted spiritually through dance and deepened through passion for water sports, including surfing, kitesurfing, diving, and spearfishing. We found a profound mutual life goal to utilize our engineering and construction skills to build a sustainability project, giving birth to Wai & Aina in June 2023.
Jody’s innate passion to make a positive impact with her head, heart and hands stems from her high school years focused in technical arts with a public purpose. She then graduated from MIT with a bachelors in mechanical engineering, minor in materials science, and masters in manufacturing. She founded W8X in 2018, a robotic strength training device startup and moved to work as a product engineer on the Apple Watch. For the past two years her engineering efforts focused on increasing sustainability, evaluating recycled and renewable materials, and reducing carbon footprint. Jody has a life passion to inspire a movement towards sustainability by making it fun, engaging and rewarding through educational and unique experiences. Yahali’s deep rooted connections in Kauai developed from 4 years working for ag-based businesses, starting a coconut trimming business- which he sold in 2016- and then founding Garden Island Handyman as well as Garden Island Contractors with his brother Ayal. He is now a licensed general contractor with 8 years of experience in construction. His steadfast efforts are dedicated to spreading an organic and sustainable lifestyle throughout Kauai and the broader community.
ABOUT Wai & Aina
We are a 20-acre developing sustainable farm nestled in the lush Keapana Valley of Kauai.
The name Wai & Aina carries deep meaning. In Hawaiian, “Wai” means water and “ʻĀina” means land — together, they represent the key elements of life, survival, and prosperity. Our farm sits at a special intersection where rolling hills meet fertile valleys, rivers, and streams, just minutes from the Keālia ocean and along the Kapaʻa Stream, with a restoration stream running right through the property.
On a personal level, Wai & Aina is also a reflection of us — one with a natural affinity for water and another deeply rooted in a connection to land. It symbolizes the balance we strive for: honoring nature’s elements while blending modern techniques to create a sustainable, thriving ecosystem.
Together, we planted the seeds of our farm, united by a vision and a fusion of our skills in engineering and construction, aspiring to cultivate more than crops. Our dream has always been to develop a thriving community — a haven where sustainability, education, agriculture, and technology coexist in harmony.
When we first arrived, the land was covered in head-high grass as far as the eye could see. Since then, we’ve been hard at work — building infrastructure, bringing in mini farm animals, creating safe enclosures, planting a diverse food forest and veggie gardens, and transforming this wild space into a place where we can curate and share unique, rustic farm experiences.
Wai & Aina Initiative
Wai & Aina Initiative is a nonprofit dedicated to agricultural and sustainability education, community food resilience, and regenerative land stewardship. We are building toward an on-farm education center and microdairy that will host classes, workshops, and immersive learning experiences—where participants don’t just observe agriculture, but practice it hands-on. From caring for animals and milking routines to orchard stewardship, composting, soil health, food preservation, and regenerative building skills, our goal is to create a living classroom rooted in real work, real skills, and real connection to place.
In this model, farm products—like eggs, milk, produce, and value-added goods are fruits of the learning process. Through shared effort and thoughtful systems, what we grow and produce helps nourish participants and supports broader community food resilience, while keeping education at the center of everything we do.
Wai & Aina LLC
Wai & Aina LLC is our mission-aligned for-profit subsidiary that supports day-to-day farm operations and helps bring long-term projects to life. The LLC will lead certain agricultural experiences and programs that are designed to be more accessible, flexible, and immediately available—such as farm experiences, short-format workshops, seasonal experiences, and on-farm offerings that introduce visitors and locals to regenerative living in a practical way. Looking forward, the LLC will primarily help develop our homestead-style farm living vision—creating future opportunities for workforce-oriented farm residences and thoughtful collaborations on affordable housing projects.
Together, the Initiative and LLC allow us to build a model that is both impact-driven and operationally sustainable: a place where education comes first, the land is cared for with intention, and community can grow over time.
