Over the last five years, with community and member support, the garden has been expanded with

vegetables and flowers for both the temple and the community. We established a new temple mission to create an environmentally friendly and sustainable community based on urban gardening and education. Two years ago, Japan's NHK television network produced a program on our work and garden project at the Palolo Hongwanji Temple. Japan recognized us as creating a new vision for a traditional Japanese temple in Hawaii.

With the creation and maintenance of a sustainable and healthy community center as our ideal, we are committed to this mission. This ideal is now a part of our new and expanded community presence. As part of this increased emphasis, we completed our first large Bon Dance in July 2024 for our community since the COVID pandemic. The theme was Becoming Sustainable and Building Health Communities.

We are committed to creating an organic community garden at the temple. This garden will embody the ideals of coexistence and appreciation of a sustainable biosphere in our small area, where all life forms are valued. It is truly a place where we practice coexistence with all living beings. The purpose of the Palolo Hongwanji garden is, of course, to grow vegetables, but it is also a garden that practices the 3Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. The cardboard

from Amazon deliveries is used under the soil, and bacteria and insects eat leftover food to create rich soil. When residents donate leftover food, we share this with the vegetables in the temple garden.