TOYA Award Speech

ONE…

Aloha and good evening everyone.

Everyone loves to hear the story of how it all began. How did you get to be where you are today?

I’d like to tell you today that it all started in my home in Hawai`i where I was raised with my mom and dad and am honored to have my mom here with me tonight.

You see, I believe things start in the home and that our first greatest contribution to humanity is with the people we are with every day. How we see them, respect them, love them, and even let them go. From the moment we enter this world, every experience and every interaction with every person is shaping us.

Your Jaycee creed begins “We believe that faith in God…” and I believe I am here today because of my faith in God and that He’d like me to share this message with you tonight.

You heard a little about my journey and I’ll tell you one story of the moment my life changed from what I wanted, to a calling into my next season of business and chocolate.

Hold up the number ONE with your finger. Now look around. It all starts with ONE person, ONE connection, ONE relationship, and sometimes the ONE thing you can do.

So ONE regular day, I was actually with my mom at a convention planning my wedding and we were walking around and I heard about ONE guy giving out samples of chocolate. I LOVE to eat chocolate so I went to talk story with him. And in Hawai`I, the more you talk story, the more samples you get to eat. So as I kept talking to him, my mom was reading his bio and made the connection that we were related. His dad and my mom’s mom or my late grandma, grew up playing on the streets of Maui together. Then the very next generation, never got to meet. Over ONE piece of chocolate (or maybe several samples) we made a connection and found family.

At that point, my Uncle Colins and his wife Joan, asked if my now husband and I wanted to learn how to make chocolates. I honestly really didn’t. I just wanted to eat the chocolates, but we spent ONE day every weekend together learning as a way to sweeten our relationship and get to know one another.

And over time, I began to hear ONE whisper in my heart that wouldn’t go away. It was God calling me to leave the work I loved to open a chocolate store. And it was ONE vision of a white picket fence, that sent me on a journey driving around the island to find the one building where we are today.

You see sometimes, we don’t have the whole thing mapped out or we had something entirely different planned for ourselves and then all we get is ONE gut feeling. But that’s all you need. And need to move forward ONE step at a time with a little bit (or a lot of) faith.

And then for the next 8 amazing years we grew our business into an award winning chocolate destination. And with the incredible support of our community, together we live out our mission of “Bringing peace to our world, ONE chocolate at a time.”

But don’t get me wrong there were many failures and mistakes along the way. For example, I created cooler bags to carry our chocolates and remember I made ONE small, but big mistake of adding ONE extra 0 to an order. So instead of 1,000 bags, I got 10,000 of these. As pallets of these things showed up at my super small business, I cried to my husband on the side of the road in my van, I then honestly told my team I made a mistake, I then excitedly told our customers we’d have a promo asking everyone to come help us carry these bags and spread the word, and then I called my community of family and friends (like my mom and dad) and asked how many boxes they could fit in their house for a season. 

So you see, you are honoring ONE me tonight, but in my story, there was and is a community of amazing someONES who helped me get to be where I am today.

And in the pandemic of 2020, we were forced to shut down with a mandate and lost all of our streams of revenue. As I cried out to God watching everything we had sacrificed and personally invested our entire savings into, in that moment I no longer had chocolates to sell which mean I no longer had customers so just started calling everyone my chocolate friends. And without chocolates, I didn’t know how we’d live out our mission of Bringing peace to our world, ONE chocolate at a time. And so, I started living out our mission of bringing peace to our world, ONE email at a time. 

I started documenting the pandemic, loss of everything, the navigating staying at home full time with a 3 and 5 year old, trying distance learning with a preschool and kindergartner, and rebuilding the business. It was through this that I later found myself writing and publishing my first book. By writing ONE chapter a week, I made ONE book that is now out in the world continually uplifting others through sharing my real and raw stories, “Bringing peace to our world, ONE chocolate story at a time.”

We have regrown our business stronger than ever before, but it was through taking it ONE day at a time, ONE chocolate friend at a time, we grew back up in Hawai`i (because we don’t ship our chocolates yet… I know sorry) but now with this book, we have the opportunity to help people around the nation and world ONE book at a time.

Here’s ONE little lesson in the book. I had a clipboard of a list of the bills that kept coming in with no money coming in and a goal to pay it all off until we were back from negative to zero and could grow again. My daughter came over to me asked me what I was worried about and in my frustration, I told her that I don’t have money to pay all these bills. She thought then told me to hold on, she ran into her room and came back with ONE penny from her own savings. Just ONE cent. And very proudly and happily placed it on my desk. Then she said, “There! No matter what, at least you will have this ONE penny.”

Do you have one penny? Do you have one person in your house or your family you can care for? Do you have one opportunity God gave you or one area he placed you in to make a difference? Of course you do. You’re here. And in just one night, I learned so much about the Junior Chamber International from one new friend starting in Hawai`i to so many of you last night and today. You each have something no ONE other person in this world can offer.

I am deeply honored to be one of your TOYA award winners with these amazing Ten Outstanding Young Americans. But remember we are just like you. We are young Americans with daily health struggles, mental illness, physical disabilities, and one thing after another that comes up, but we are also in this room together because we believe that ONE person, in unity with others, can make a difference. It could be one day speaking on one stage receiving an award, but it could also be one smile, one hug, one listen, or ONE piece of chocolate that can make the one difference to lead you into a completely different season. 

I want to honor my many someONEs tonight. I’d like to first thank my husband Chris and my kids Aubrey and Conner, my mom and dad, big sister Evie Joy, my family, aunties, uncles, friends, mentors, my chocolate family, community of chocolate friends, my new friend Sarah Young and the Honolulu Chinese Jaycee’s for your nomination, the Junior Chamber International, Foundation, TOYA committee, judges, all of YOU, and of course our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Remember, “YOU can bring peace to our world, ONE __ at a time.: Fill in the blank.

Faith forward my friends!

Mahalo.

More info about JCI USA, the TOYA award, and my bio in photos below from the program booklet. :)