ALOHA & WELCOME TO THE STABLES COMMUNITY Swap Meet

As a resident of Hawaiian Shores for almost 20 years, I’ve never enjoyed it so much as this last year. We have classes and more open events for everyone to enjoy, not just the members of HSCA. Many newcomers and longtime residents as well are really interested in having more fun, social, and open events close to home. 
Lately, one of our members Georgette Bell has been organizing classes that are being held at the stables. Restorative Yoga on Monday nights at 6pm, Gentle Yoga on Wednesday mornings at 10 am, Dog Training classes, Zumba & Qui Gong. There have been a couple of workshops too, like painting on silk. The classes are open to everyone, not just HSCA members. 
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In December I hosted a Last Minute Holiday Shopping Sale that attracted some really great vendors. That got me to thinking, we need a regular swap meet here, all the other communities have them! Turns out that the board thought so too and just needed the right person to organize it. They even re-graded the back of the stables to facilitate this.

So here I am, with quite a bit of experience of it too. In my hometown Chicago, I organized a huge yearly holiday sale that attracted up to 200 vendors at its height, plus smaller craft fairs during the year. After moving here and opening a bookstore/cafe in Pahoa in the 1990, I became one of the founding members of Mainstreet Pahoa and organized all of the craft fairs we hosted in town, including the original Farmers Market in the Akebono Parking lot, which eventually morphed into Makuu Farmers Market (tho I stopped being involved once it became the Farmers Market).

The vision for this market is for the community & residents to have a place to hold a yard sale without all the fuss of  it being at home, people to share their overabundance of what's growing in their yards, artists and craftspeople to be able to display & sell their wares,  and an extension for other small business people in a once a month venue.
I look forward to helping connect our communities this way and have some great ideas to make it more fun in the future.