Watch>>In HD/Wide Screen Here

What inspired Jack Johnson to start the Kokua Hawaii Foundation?

::GREEN DEETS::
Jack Johnson, and his wife Kim, have spent the last five years quietly effecting change in their home state of Hawaii with their Kokua Hawaii Foundation and Kokua Festival, and worldwide through involvement in many social and environmental issues. In 2003 the Johnson’s founded the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that supports environmental education in the schools and communities of Johnson’s native home state of Hawaii. Their mission is to provide students with exciting and interactive encounters that will enhance their appreciation for and understanding of their environment so they will be lifelong stewards of the earth. In addition to several school programs, the Foundation’s work has expanded with local community events and environmental action campaigns.

::LISTEN TO THE SINGLE If I Had Eyes::

Watch more exclusive video >>

::GREEN DEETS 001 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the environmental problems in the world?

::GREEN DEETS 002 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Is there an overall theme to your new album?

::GREEN DEETS 003 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
How do you deal with the static?

::GREEN DEETS 004 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Do you set out to write songs about the environment?

::GREEN DEETS 005 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Are there any songs on this album that deal with the environment?

::GREEN DEETS 006 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Why do you use music to reach people?

::GREEN DEETS 007 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

::GREEN DEETS 008 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
How did you get so passionate about the environment?

::GREEN DEETS 009 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
Other than the ocean, are there any other environmental themes you’re drawn to?

::GREEN DEETS 010 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
As a father now, do you feel more responsible for the type of world you’re
handing down to the next generations?

::GREEN DEETS 011 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
What inspired you to start the Kokua Hawaii Foundation?

::GREEN DEETS 012 Jack Johnson Video Interview::
What’s your advice to people who are getting overwhelmed with the static?

::LINKS::
Kokua Hawaii Foundation
1% For The Planet
Official Jack Johnson website
Making It Mellow and Keeping It Green NYT

::TRANSCRIPT::
Jack Johnson: My wife and I, we were having a conversation one day about doing a show in Hawaii. The popularity of the music had grown to a size where we realized we could draw a lot of people and started out by thinking that it’s our hometown. You know, I grew up in Hawaii. I didn’t really want to do a show and have all the money go in my pocket. I wanted to do a show and have the money go back into the community. My wife had a teaching background. She taught for four years, math and I have always been involved in education and the environmental issues really close to our hearts. So we kind of decided the best thing we could do would be to support environmental education because to me, you teach the kids and you’ve got a real fighting chance of kind of preserving nature for them, you know, or the natural world for the generation to come. But it’s too hard to make an old person recycle. You know, they are set in their ways. With kids, you can introduce these words like sustainability, recycling and organics all these the way the world is shifting now. And it’s like get it into the kids’ heads and let them have a chance to learn these things.

And it’s really neat to see after four or five years of playing at the schools, to see now that there are kids who were in sixth grade and I went and visited them when they were in elementary school. Now they are 11th, 12th grade or you know in the Student Body Council for their high school and they are starting environmental clubs and things like that. To see these kids maturing into a place where they are actually making change is really neat. And we’ve got all these volunteers at the Festival that come to work at the Zero Emissions Stations and they come to help in any way that they can at the Festival.

It’s neat. It’s nice to be able to show kids that to care about this stuff is cool. You know, because there are too many examples out there that if you get a lot of money, you should buy more cars and you should get a bigger house and be on “Cribs” or whatever. And so it’s just nice to be able to provide that to kids, you know to show them that to live like to try to live like the Swiss Family Robinson. That’s an option too.

::VIDEO CREDITS::
Created By | Executive Producer: George Spyros
Interviewer: Jasmin Malik Chua
Editor: Michele Latorre
Graphics: Tim Goodwin
Junior Editors: Holly Buechel, Indio Martinez
Production Company: Big City Pictures