Kalehua Kaopua.

Kalehua is Kanaka ʻŌiwi, mother of four, running for House District 45 to create the Waiʻanae our keiki deserve. She was born in Nāpoʻopoʻo, Hawaiʻi Island, and grew up moving between there and Waiʻanae, with roots on both. She was the child who lived with everyone: when her mother couldn't care for her, she was raised by her grandmother and her aunties in Waiʻanae. Her family was displaced from their home in the 1990s. She spent her teenage years homeless, faced incarceration, and dropped out in the 9th grade with unrecognized ADHD and an addiction she would later overcome.

She went to Nānākuli High School for a while, then Waiʻanae night school, and worked the counter at the Nānākuli McDonald's. At 17 she left again for Nāpoʻopoʻo, then traveled far beyond it, through Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador, before coming home to Waiʻanae for good.

Through all of it, she taught herself politics, political history, and the history that shaped Hawaiʻi. She served as a caretaker of a heiau, and stood against luxury developments when others stayed quiet.

Today, six years sober and a mother of four, she is running for House District 45 because she has lived what too many of our families are still living through. She knows what it takes to heal — and she is done waiting for someone else to start.

This campaign is about the Waiʻanae our keiki deserve. The Waiʻanae that takes care of its keiki, its kūpuna, its ʻāina. The Waiʻanae that doesn't get left behind when the rest of the island gets new investment, new housing, new opportunity — but takes the lead.

When Waiʻanae rises, Hawaiʻi rises.