For the Pauni family,
it is business as usual.
Hailing from Tonga,
the Pauni’s are a staple of USU’s annual luau – and are likely to be found at
any other island-themed party in the valley. A family of nine, they comprise
Pauni Island Catering and Entertainment.
The Pauni’s moved to
Cache Valley from Tonga in 1990. Seneti Pauni, or “Janet” as she likes to be
called, began a small catering business while her husband worked his own landscaping
business. Pauni knew some traditional Polynesian dances, and began teaching her
children to dance so they could entertain her clients as they ate.
“When you’re a kid,
you just start doing something and it becomes normal,” said son Joe Pauni. “To
us, it was just normal to learn how to dance and cook.”
Soon the children
knew traditional dances from Tonga, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti and
Hawaii. As the children grew, they helped their mother in more aspects of the
business. Now as the children begin families of their own, their children join
perform in the luaus as well – some began at the age of five and six.
“The kids all join
in,” said daughter Ati Velasquez. “They do the haka, they do the hula from
Hawaii, and they do the Fijian dance from Fiji.”
As the family grew,
so did their business. The Pauni family isn’t an exclusively Cache Valley
institution anymore.
“This week we have
the Kite Festival in St. George and the Earth Festival in Ogden,” Janet Pauni
said. “We go from St. George to Idaho. Throughout the year we go to about 18
festivals.”
However, the family
didn’t come to the United States with a vision of owning a successful catering
business. For Janet and her husband, they left home and family to give their
children a better education – and a brighter future.
“On the island, you finish high school and that’s it,” the
mother said. “We wanted our kids to go to a university and to have better lives
with their future families.”
After Janet Pauni’s
husband passed away in 2004, she was left both to run her late husband’s
business and provide for their nine kids. Struggling to maintain her catering
business while finishing landscaping jobs, Pauni started finishing fewer jobs
on time – and had to pay back the money loaned as a penalty.
To survive, she
started pulling her children out of school to help her finish the jobs. The
dream of her children going to college started to fade. Beneath the weight of
two businesses and a mortgage, the family struggled to live day to day.
Then Janet Pauni
applied to the television show Extreme Home Makeover.
“I watched the show
and it said that anybody can apply for it,” Pauni said. “So I turned in an
application.”
She wrote how they
had left Tonga for their children’s schooling. She described her husband’s
passing, and her being forced to be the mom and the dad. She also wrote of her
business, and her dream of having her own commercial kitchen for catering. If
she couldn’t pay her mortgage, all they had worked for would have been for
nothing. She pleaded for them to help make their dreams come true.
In 2006 Extreme Home
Makeover came to Logan, Utah. The Pauni’s received a spacious new home on the
quiet street where they resided, which was provided entirely by the show. Janet
Pauni finally got the catering kitchen she had been dreaming of. All their problems
weren’t solved, but now the dream seemed within reach.
“Life is easier now,”
Pauni said. “Not easy, but easier.”
The family knows the
success of their business – and overcoming their trials – has all stemmed from
the strength of the family.
“Even my siblings
that are all married try and help out my mom whenever they can,” Joe Pauni
said. “They are willing to drop whatever they are doing and just come help. We
are all there for each other.”
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