Aloha! My name is Naomi Nascimento and I am a Native Hawaiian lauhala weaver on the island of Oahu. Lauhala weaving is a cultural art that we almost lost and thankfully by the grace of dedicated weavers who were willing to teach the art outside of their ohana (family) the Native Hawaiian artform is still here with us. I am working to perpetuate lauahala weaving and in particular teach people who are ultimately interested in papale (hat) weaving. Through my experiences teaching small classes and workshops the interest in learning to weave is in our communities, but there is a barrier to weaving which is gathering and prepping lauhala. Lauahala gathering and prep takes hours on end of hard work, we gather from the tree, clean off debris, remove thorns, softening process, and then roll into a kuka'a (wheel) for storage. I am finding that people do not know how to do these things and which tools are best to use and in turn are not able to weave without the lauhala.