Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 9, 1 September 2005 — Immersion grant [ARTICLE]

Immersion grant

In August, the Dowling Community Improvement Foundation gave a $20,000 grant to Nā Leo Pūlama o Maui to support Hawaiian language education. The grant will be used for tuition assistance for students and teacher training at Pūnana Leo o Maui, whieh was the first Hawaiian language-immersion preschool on Maui. The school opened in 1987 and has since graduated hundreds of fluent Hawaiian speakers who have gone on to schools in the state Department of Education's Hawaiian Language Immersion Program. Nā Leo Pūlama o Maui is a nonprofit organization dedicated to perpetuating Hawaiian language and culture on Maui. The organization currently focuses on preschoolers by providing them with a quality education through the medium of Hawaiian language immersion. The Dowling Community Improvement Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Dowling Company ine., a Maui-based development company. U