Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 24, Number 11, 1 November 2007 — OHA trustees approve nearly $6 million in community funding [ARTICLE]

OHA trustees approve nearly $6 million in community funding

Total of awards is highest ever at a single board meeting

By KWO staff Pastor Boo Soares was born and raised in Wai'anae, wliei'e he has seen plenty of Native Hawaiian families

driven to despair by drug use, divorce and joblessness. He's been there himself, though he made a turnaround and now is a passionate advocate for Wai'anae's most visibly dispossessed - homeless people in the Leeward coast's ramshaclde beach encampments. "I think of my work as helping to make a plaee where homeless people ean go and get help so that they ean dream again of the future," Pastor Boo says. With an OHA grant of more than $1 million, he and a coalition of Leeward coast church and community leaders are building this kind of plaee. Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale o Wai'anae, scheduled to open in February, will offer a transitional housing complex, along with a comprehensive range of support services, including drug counseling, vocational training and job placement. Pastor Boo is particularly thankful that the OHA award has made it possible for the new complex to include a preschool for the children of families in transition. "The preschool meant more work and more money, but it's absolutely neeessary, because nothing brings more peaee to the heart than knowing your children are safe and cared for - otherwise too mueh stress," he says. Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale o Wai'anae is one of 12 projects serving Native Hawaiians to receive community funds approved last month by OHA' s

Board of Trustees. The grants, whieh were awarded through the board initiative process, total just under $6 million, the largest amount ever eom-

mitted by OHA's board at a single meeting. Grant recipients include a range of organizations from UH Mānoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies to Goodwill Industries of Hawai'i. "In assisting programs that reach out to the Native Hawaiians, the trustees have demonstrated an exemplary level of commitment to the eommunity," Board Chairperson Haunani Apoliona said. Board initiative funding is used by the OHA trustees to make substantial awards that

fall outside the nonnal scope of the agency's community grants program. Projects in receipt of the funding often involve capital-improvements or multi-year time-spans and are seen as having potentially major impacts in improving the lives of Native Hawaiians. For example, a grant of $500,000 will enable the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' Home Ownership Assistance Program to provide prospective and existing lessees with credit counseling. "This kind of financial edu-

cation is a main determinant in ensuring that debt does not impede a homeowner's ability to make mortgage payments," said Wendy Burkholder, manager of the company that will provide DHHL clients with credit counseling under the OHA grant. Other recipients of the recent funding awards are: • $300,000 to the Waipā Foundation, to support the design and construction of a community kitchen, including a poi production facility. • $500,000 to Hale Kipa, ine., to support the design and construction of a comprehensive program support center and residential shelter complex in 'Ewa, O'ahu. • $90,000 to the University of Hawai'i, to provide graduate fellowships for Native Hawaiian students enrolled in doctorate degree programs during the final year of preparation for their Ph.D. degrees. • $500,000 to Lōkahi Pacific, to support the rehabilitation and renovation of the historical Kalaniana'ole Hall on Moloka'i. • $750,000 to the UH College of Education's Ho'okulāiwi 'Aha Ho'ona'auao - Center for Native Hawaiian and Indigenous Education, to support the preparation of teachers and educational leaders for Hawaiian communities. • $630,000 to the UH law school's Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law to support the continued operations of the Na'au Pono Initiative. • $393,011 to Dyslexia Tutoring Center of Hawai'i, ine. to continue to provide tutoring services and eommunity awareness on dyslexia to Native Hawaiians. • $500,000 to Goodwill Industries of Hawai'i, ine. to support the construction of the 'Ohana Career and Learning Center in the Kapolei Business Park. • $300,000 to Kai'ōpua Canoe Club to support eonstruction of a eanoe hālau in Kailua-Kona, Hawai'i. E3

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