Katherine, on Mauna Kea at Sunset

Recorded at Polestar Gardens, May 19th, 2011, 2:00pm.

Last August I met Katherine Hanold. She arrived at Polestar around the same time as about 15 other interns and spent a month participating in our programs. During her stay she surprised me and the staff with a gesture that has made a lasting impression… Katherine recently revisited Polestar during her break (she works as a Librarian for Holland America Line Cruise Ships) so I took a moment to sit down with her and talk.

Bernadette: Can we talk a little about what brought you to Polestar the first time you came in August of 2010?

Katherine: Well, you might remember that I had just quit my job three days before I arrived on the Big Island. I had spent two years, post-college, doing a 9am-5pm, cubicle-office job. I was really frustrated with it and had realized that that life wasn’t for me, but I didn’t know what I wanted instead. I had always wanted to travel but it had never quite worked out because I couldn’t find anyone to travel with and was too chicken to travel alone. A friend turned me on to the WWOOF program and that was how I found Polestar… I saw your website and figured, “Why not?!” It sounded like the ideal place to travel, grow, and learn with others while I was figuring out the next step in my own life.

B: When you were here you caught wind of the Matching Subscription challenge (similar to a matching grant model of fundraising) I was working on and without hesitation you handed over a $240 donation to become part of the Ohana (Polestar’s donating “Family”). It came out of nowhere, from someone I never thought would come up with that kind of commitment. So my question to you is: why was it so simple for you without hesitation to hand over cash like that? Why was that such a no-brainer for you?

K: You know, I don’t really know… it just kind of was. I had heard the murmurs about the Matching Grant program and I remember working in the garden one day and thinking about the ways Polestar had impacted my life. I was, and in many ways still am, a wandering soul and I had wandered into this place. Before I got here I was really into Ashtanga Yoga but I had never experienced meditation, Raja Yoga, Energization or anything like that. Everyone here at Polestar was really supportive and it felt like family. I liked the vision and where Polestar was going, and I wanted to be a part of helping make that happen. Since I couldn’t stay and help, I figured that making a financial contribution was a way I could feel like I was giving back for the opportunity that I had here.

B: I guess what blew me away, and still does, is that you have student loans to pay off and, at the time, you had no job to go back to and yet you just heard about this challenge and… BAM! Dug into your savings and gave.

K: When something comes up that I’m behind, that I support (which doesn’t happen all that often), I want to be able to give it energy in any way that I can. I think that’s important. I just don’t think there are many places like Polestar and I want to make sure it sticks around so other folks like me can have the same kinds of experiences I did when I came here. I mean, even now, with just two interns on the grounds, there is an entirely different dynamic going on, and yet there is still the same essence of all the hard work in the garden (which is great for the soul) and laughing and singing. This place feeds me in ways that I can’t get anywhere else.

B: I guess I just wanted to thank you for stepping up to the plate like that.

K: No problem. It was my pleasure.