Culinary Club Discontinued

Photo courtesy of Tiare Hubbard

By Jack Kiyonaga, Editor

Following three years of cook offs, kitchen skills, restaurant visits and community galas, Molokai High School’s (MHS) popular Culinary Club will no longer be in operation at the high school starting next year.

“The Culinary Club will be discontinued at the end of the current school year,” explained a March 5 letter from MHS Principal Katina Soares to parents. “We are committed to providing culinary experiences and career opportunities for our students. These opportunities will be integrated into the regular in-school culinary class curriculum moving forward.”

The decision to shelve the club was due to fundraising worries and an administrative desire for stronger adherence to MHS’s Academy Model, explained Soares in an interview with the Dispatch.

MHS transitioned to an Academy Model after the COVID pandemic, with three academies for students to choose specific career pathways from.

“These pathways were chosen based on high wage, high demand fields on and off Molokai, the expertise of staff, and student interest,” said Soares. “Instead of trying to be a big school and offer a ton of different things, we’re going to offer a little less and try to be really good at those things…Although [the Culinary Club] is very popular, it wasn’t one of our official pathways.”

With the addition of a culinary class last year, Soares explained that there’s “really not a need for the club in that regard.”

Additionally, Soares said she wants the moderator of the culinary club, MHS teacher Tiare Hubbard, to focus more of her assigned duties in the health pathway.

“Ms. Hubbard was hired to do our health pathway…so we’re focusing on making sure the majority of her energy is going to that,” said Soares.

The decision to discontinue the club comes on the heels of the club’s five-day trip to Maui to check out a variety of culinary programs, jobs and more.

The trip, which MHS contributed $10,000 towards according to Soares, allowed club members to meet up with MHS graduates who are currently working in the culinary field, as well as tour facilities like the Fairmont Kea Lani and the Four Seasons Maui.

It was at the Four Seasons where MHS students had the chance to compete in a Chopped-style competition against the hotel’s beginner staff. One Molokai student group, composed of Maika Paleka Ku, Iokua Place, Anjolie Manaba and Shyalynn Rapanot, took first place with their winning dish: a Kauai prawn scampi plate.

Trips like these have proved useful in the past, explained Hubbard. In just the last two years, several MHS students have gone on to study at UH Maui’s culinary arts program, as well as entered the work force through mentorships with Culinary Club partners like Fairmont Kea Lani and Four Seasons Maui.

The Culinary Club, which has the most full-time members of any club at MHS according to Hubbard, will not disappear completely from Molokai. Rather, the
Kalamaula Homesteaders Association will be taking over direction of the club and opening it up to the rest of the Molokai community, Hubbard explained.

“Committed students and families remain dedicated to upholding the club’s purpose and vision, moving forward as a community initiative to promote culinary success across the island,” she said.

The club’s well-attended annual fundraiser, The Queen’s Gala, is still scheduled to take place this year, but is no longer an MHS event.