About Kahu Pōpoki
The Entrusted Guardian of Cats
Kahu Pōpoki grew from years of living with cats, caring for community colonies, doing TNR, helping cats through surgery and recovery, managing sanctuary life, studying the research, and becoming involved in the public decisions that affect animals and the places we share with them.
Over time, the work became about more than cats alone. It became about relationship, responsibility, care, learning, and place.
And the name Kahu Pōpoki came forward that captures the essence of all of this.
My Moʻolelo - Greg Pu'uwai Aloha Baker, Founder
The name Kahu Pōpoki is deeply personal for me.
I did not choose it because I was looking for a Hawaiian name for an organization. My understanding of kahu grew slowly through the people who became part of my life here in Hawaiʻi.
One of the most important of those people is my departed best friend, Punaikeonaona Keliʻihoʻomalu.
Through our friendship, and through my relationship with his father, Uncle Robert Keliʻihoʻomalu, and the Keliʻihoʻomalu ʻohana, I began to understand more deeply that words such as kahu, kuleana, mālama, and aloha are lived through relationship.
Their meaning is found in how we care for one another, how we show up, how we carry responsibility, and how we remain connected to people and place. These were not ideas I learned from a distance. They came through friendship, conversation, shared experience, being welcomed into ʻohana, and years of learning.
As my work with cats grew, the word kahu began to describe something I was already trying to live.
The cats were not simply animals I cared for. They had been entrusted to my care. And with that came kuleana.
Through those relationships and conversations, I came to understand Kahu Pōpoki as a name that could carry that meaning. I was given permission to use the name, and that permission has always mattered deeply to me.
Other people close to me have continued to shape that understanding.
- My friend Kuʻulei Goo, a Hawaiian language teacher, has helped me listen more carefully to ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and understand how much can be lost when Hawaiian words are reduced to simple English equivalents.
- Josette “KumuK” Kaohu, a kumu hula, friend, board member, and longtime supporter of this work, has also shared guidance, perspective, and encouragement.
These folks are my close, dear friends and my ʻohana.
They are part of my moʻolelo, and therefore part of the moʻolelo of Kahu Pōpoki. What they have shared with me carries kuleana too.
My responsibility is to receive it with humility, continue learning, and try to live it well.
Learning to Live Our Aloha
The more I have learned, the more these ideas have come to connect with one another.
Kahu reminds me that care begins with relationship and trust.
- Kuleana reminds me that relationship carries responsibility.
- Mālama turns that responsibility into everyday care and action.
- Moʻolelo reminds me that every cat, every person, and every place carries a history worth listening to.
- ʻIke grows as we observe, study, listen, and learn from one another.
And through all of this, we continue learning how to live and express aloha.
Aloha is something we hope people experience through how we care, how we listen, how we treat animals and people, and how faithfully we carry the kuleana entrusted to us. That is the heart of Kahu Pōpoki.
Kahu → Kuleana → Mālama → Moʻolelo → ʻIke → Aloha
Not as a rigid formula, but as a way these ideas have come to relate to one another through the relationships and work that shaped this journey.
What Kahu Pōpoki Does
Kahu Pōpoki is a place to:
Live With Cats — share the lived reality of sanctuary life, community colonies, TNR, clinic work, recovery, and everyday care.
Learn With Cats — bring together research, lived experience, population management, health, conservation, and public policy.
Talk Story With Cats — listen, share manaʻo, and create space for thoughtful conversation about difficult and important issues.
[Life With Cats]
[Learn With Cats]
[Talk Story With Cats]
Come Along For The Journey
Kahu Pōpoki will continue to grow as the cats, the people, the questions, and the learning grow.
- There will be serious work.
- There will be difficult questions.
- There will be new ʻike.
And there will always be cats doing wonderfully cat-like things.
Ua kono ʻia ʻoe e hele pū me mākou ma kēia huakaʻi kūikawā loa.
You are invited to come along with us on this very special journey.
Malama pono e a hui hou.