Oceania Rising is an environmental education event hosted by the San Mateo County Office of Education. The event aimed to bridge educators, school board members, and faculty with Pacific Islander-specific approach to environmental teaching and learning. We were one of the 3 Pasefika Community organizations who co-facilitated the event alongside Climate Resilient Communities, and 'Anamatangi Polynesian Voices. In addition, there were several agencies featuring field trip opportunities for the students within San Mateo County.

The Summer of 2022, we were fortunate to become partners in the Youth Empowerment, Entrepreneurship & Employment program of North San Mateo County. Through this partnership, we became internship hosts and took on 3 Summer interns. For a little over 6 weeks, our interns learned about our organization and took on key tasks such as:

• Community Outreach & volunteer support

• Assisting in the setup of Le Maota

• Social Media reviews

• Data Entry

• Inventory

Since 2021, we've collaborated with our family at P.I.E.F.E.S.T. to co-facilitate a Mataio Maker Meetup where participants can learn about the different ways our Pasefika ancestors used S.T.E.M. in their everyday life. So far, we've taken a look at 

• Tufuga Faufale - Master Carpenters who built our Samoan Fales/Structures. 

• Tautai Folau - Master Navigators, our Wayfinders who sailed the great Oceania. 

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world unexpectedly. The impacts effecting our lives on all levels. One of the many ways we were able to lend a hand is through partnership with San Mateo County Office Of Health. Our key role was to ensure our Pasefika Community in North County, had access to free COVID-19 testing. In our partnership, we were paired up with a community testing site St James AME Zion church in San Mateo. Each week, our outreach team were onsite to not only help with COVID-19 testing, but to also pack essential "COVID-19 combat kits" of sanitizer, face masks and information on how to get support if you test positive. 

Literacy is a gateway to possibilities and we value events and efforts that support child literacy. We support local efforts by helping to provide access to free books, hosting literacy activities for youth & aiding in building out Pasefika classroom library collections for schools.

• Reading Bonanza in the Park - East Palo Alto

• Family Literacy & Health Fair - Daly City

• Pasefika Career Technical Education Classroom - San Bruno

We will always be committed to ensuring a complete count of our Pasefika people here in the San Francisco Bay Area and nation wide. In both 2010 & 2020, we joined the Pacific Islander Complete Count Committee of San Mateo County. The main objectives of the committee were to outreach to our Pacific Islander Communities to ensure:

• Awareness of the the impact(s) & importance the Census has on our communities 

• Understood and are aware of key information on the Census:

  • How to get counted

  • Deadline to be counted

  • That the Census is SAFE and confidential

  • Where to go if they had questions

• Encourage community to BE COUNTED