Hawaii Pacific Health (HPH) and Kamehameha Schools (KS) have renewed their partnership, reaffirming their joint commitment to improve education, health, economic stability and social well-being of students and people across Hawaii.
Leaders from both organizations gathered at the Kamehameha Schools’ Kapalama campus to celebrate the renewal and formally sign a new memorandum of understanding. KS CEO Jack Wong and HPH President & CEO Ray Vara signed the memorandum just as they did when the original agreement was inked in 2019, laying the foundation of collaborative work benefiting students, families and communities statewide.
“Over the past six years, our partnership with Hawaii Pacific Health has shown how powerful it is when health and education are aligned around community,” Wong said. “Together we’ve opened doors for haumana to explore health careers, invested in local food entrepreneurs, and grown our local food systems. This new memorandum builds on that momentum by reaffirming our focus on the overall health, resilience and well-being of Native Hawaiians.”
“We are deeply grateful to Kamehameha Schools for this partnership and are proud of the impact we’ve made together to improve social determinants of health for Hawaii families,” Vara said. “Through innovative programs, we’ve advanced workforce development initiatives, supported local food systems and made transformational investments. This new agreement reaffirms our shared commitment to leverage our collective strengths in health care and education to create healthier communities across Hawaii.”
New Focus on Hawaiian Community Health
The renewed memorandum adds a shared initiative of enhancing Hawaiian community health and well-being. As part of this effort, HPH and KS will share data and explore opportunities to partner on research related to Native Hawaiian health disparities to help better serve their needs.
Impact of the Partnership
In the past six years, together, both organizations have made a significant impact in the four areas of focus initiated in their original agreement. Projects launched during that time include:
1. Expanding career pathways and internship opportunities for haumana (students)
- Provided valuable experiences for more than 100 KS haumana through research opportunities and health care career training programs.
2. Investing in programs that make a social impact and empower Hawaii people and families
- Supported local food entrepreneurs across the state through a joint investment of about $1 million in Feed The Hunger Fund in Hawaii.
3. Building healthy food systems
- Both organizations achieved their purchasing goal of sourcing at least 50% of food locally for dining services and exceeded that goal in 2025.
4. Coordinating activities for community engagement
- Coordinated community workdays for nearly 400 HPH employees and their families who volunteered at KS partner sites, such as loi on Oahu and Kauai.
Photo (top): Hawaii Pacific Health and Kamehameha Schools celebrated the signing of a new memorandum of understanding with the teams from their organization who have advanced the purposeful work behind this partnership.
Photo (inset): Jack Wong, Kamehameha Schools CEO, and Ray Vara, HPH president & CEO, displaying the signed memorandums reaffirm the joint commitment of KS and HPH to improve education, health, economic stability and social well-being of students and people across Hawaii.