Kaʻū News Briefs, Thursday, September 19, 2019

THE MEMORY OF DEL BOTHOF WAS HONORED at the recent sixth annual Volcano Winery Harvest Festival fundraiser for VolcanoSchool of Arts & Sciences 8. The sold-out event, attended by 250 people, was blessed with clear skies and cool mountain air. A statement from Volcano School called it  "an especially beautiful and heartfelt evening"  as guests paid tribute to Volcano Winery owner Del Bothof, who passed away this summer.

Music from the The Kuahiwis was a great pairing with the wines poured during the 6th annual Volcano Winery Harvest Festival. Photo from VSAS

     School principal Kalima Kinney said, "VolcanoSchoolstudents, families, teachers, and staff are forever grateful to Deland (his wife and co-owner) Marie for creating and hosting this remarkable event. It has grown into our signature fundraiser, and this year's gathering was our most successful yet. We truly felt Del's presence and love for the community that night."

      The event raised more than $14,000, a new record. Last year's event raised a little over $10,000. The funds will go to sustain and expand Volcano School's Healthy Food Program and Food Sustainability initiatives.
      Said Kinney, "Nutritious food is a foundation for successful learning and Volcano School has been proud to offer students free, healthy breakfast and lunch for every student, every day. We're also dedicated to using local products in student meals to support local farmers and food sustainability efforts, to reduce our school and community's reliance on imported food." 

Long community tables let friends, old and new, talk story at the Volcano Winery Harvest Festival. Photo from VSAS

     Attendees enjoyed a wide selection of Volcano Winery wines, along with beers from Hilo Brewing Company and coffee from Rusty's 100% Kaʻū. Delicious food courtesy of Café Ono, Eagle's Lighthouse Café, VolcanoSchool's Keakealani Kitchen, Ohelo Café, Papaʻa Palaoa Bakery, Tuk-Tuk Thai Food Truck, Volcano's Lava Rock Café, and WikiFRESH, plus a special selection from Kīlauea Lodge, "kept guests happily well-fed."

     The raffle highlighted the evening. The 30 packages included handmade donations from the school community, area businesses, and artists; hotel stays from the Royal Kona Resort, Grand Naniloa Resort, and Hotel Renew in Waikiki; golf from Mauna Kea Resort; activities from Fair Wind Cruises and Kapohokine Adventures; and much more.

The raffle table showed off some of the great prizes. Photo from VSAS

     The Volcano School ‘ohana and Volcano Winery representatives said they would like to acknowledge and thank Brian Hatayama of Islandwide Canopy Tents for donating tents, tables, and chairs; Chelsey Hanselman of Hawaiʻi Paper Products; Jason Morton of HFM Food Service; and The Kuahiwis – TR Ireland, Grant Ka‘au‘a, Kiliona "Moku" Young – for their musical entertainment.

     Volcano School of Arts & Sciences is a tuition-free, Hawaiian-focused, public charter school, dedicated to the mission of learning through Volcano's unique natural and cultural resources to become creative global citizens. VSAS is open and is currently accepting enrollment applications. Contact 808-985-9800, or email enrollment@volcanoschool.net.

     According to Olivia Peterken's story in Pacific Business News last evening, natural resource management accounted for some 4,697 jobs statewide in 2018, a 33 percent increase over five years. PBNquoted from a new economic report from University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization. Entitled Characterizing Hawaiʻi's Natural Resources Management Sector: Jobs, Education, Salaries, and Expenditures, it found much Natural Resources Management job growth through nonprofits and academic groups. It also found that state government contributes the most, with 1,500 positions, 1,000 of  them through state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

     Kimberly Burnett, research economist at UHERO, who worked on the report, told PBN: "A lot of these new jobs are because of the changes we're seeing in our environment and in our natural resources. I think a lot of the government sector is trying to address these climate mitigation issues, like sea level rise and warming temperatures, so that's where a lot of the job growth is coming from."

     Burnett told PBN that a category "that I feel is being cut a lot is building fences to protect the watersheds. Right now, we are just responding to what we can see, so agencies are putting out sand bags and sending people to deal with monthly emergencies, utilizing more of a reactive strategy rather than a long-term proactive strategy that protects the resources."

     Hauoli Mau Loa Foundation, a private, Honolulu-based grant-making group with a mission "to enhance stewardship, preservation and protection of the environment," helped to fund the report.

     "One of [Hauoli Mau Loa's] objectives is to retain students and have them go into Hawaiʻi's Natural Resource Management sector," Burnett told PBN. "Part of the survey's purpose is to understand that, if you're interested in protecting the environment and natural resources, you can do that in Hawaiʻi." See the full report.

MAUNAKEA: A WAY FORWARD was previewed by Mayor Harry Kim today. During an Office of Hawaiian Affairs meeting in Hilo, Kim said he is not quite done developing his "path forward" toward solution to the standoff that has left Protectors of Maunakea blocking the access road to the summit since July 13, in protest of the building of the world's largest telescope atop a mauna they hold sacred. After some arrests, Gov. David Ige asked Kim to help.

     Said Kim, "This presentation is beyond a yes-or-no of the TMT project. This is about asking Hawaiʻi's people to come together and find a new path to go forward in a good way."

Mayor Harry Kim read from his not quite finished plan for Maunakea. Photo from Big Island Video News

    Among his ideas is "a cultural center to protect and preserve the historical and cultural specialness of Hawaiʻi and its people." Another is "an umbrella management authority that gives strong deference to the voices of the host island and the Hawaiian community." The mayor said OHA knows "how important that is."

     Kim said he seeks the positive, "because what is happening, I think, is something nobody wants: a polarization of the people of this land."

     Kim read excerpts from "version 109" of his plan: "In recent years, the Hōkūleʻa gave birth to a phenomenal Hawaiian cultural renaissance, reigniting the Hawaiian’s desire to discover, grow, and explore new frontiers, with the pride, the wisdom, and courage of their elders. In recent months, Mauna Kea has added to this remarkable Hawaiian cultural Renaissance. The Hawaiians' identity and the pride of being Hawaiian, and with this the reverence, the sacredness, for the total environment. When respectfully integrated with a comprehensive understanding of Mauna Kea and Hawaiian culture, astronomy can be such a catalyst for positive and transformational changes in Hawaiʻi. Under the leadership of dreamers, innovators, and an awakened community, this can be the leverage for not only Mauna Keaissues, but to understand and address wrongs of past to make us a better people and place."

     Kim said he hoped to present the final version of his plan to the governor this week.

DEFEND FILIPINO WORLD WAR II VETERANS' right to bring family members to the U.S., is the request from Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, plus a dozen of their colleagues. In a letter to the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, the Democrats urge him to rescind the Trump Administration's decision to terminate the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program. The program allows adult children of Filipino WWII veterans, along with their spouses and children under age 21, to enter the United States while they await an available immigrant visa. 

Hawaiʻi legislators are defending the right of Filipino  WWII veterans to bring family member in to the U.S. Photo from Filipino Veterans Recognition and  Education Project, filvetrep.org

      The Senators wrote, "Over the past two years, the Trump administration has repeatedly attacked immigrants, and once again, its anti-immigrant disposition is reflected in this harmful and unnecessary action to end a program that helps elderly World War II veterans – who are now in their late 80s and 90s – reunite with their children and siblings. By abruptly and cruelly terminating this program nearly two years early, you are breaking yet another promise to Filipino World War II veterans and denying them the relief they deserve for their service to our country. We strongly urge you to reverse your decision to keep these veterans separated from their families by ending the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program."

     Filipino veterans were granted citizenship in recognition of their service to the United States during World War II. Many of their children, however, were not. Due to the volume of immigrant visa applications from the Philippines, it can take more than 20 years for families to be reunited. Under the FWVP program, which Hirono was instrumental in creating the FWVP program in 2016.

     In July, Hirono met for a second time with the Milla Family – the first family in Hawaiʻi to benefit from the FWVP program in 2017. After waiting more than 20 years for an immigrant visa, the FWVP program enabled Jeorge Milla to be reunited with his mother in Hawaiʻi, while awaiting his visa. Jeorge and his wife Juseline are now employed in Hawaiʻi, their two daughters Jasmine and Jeraldine are attending college, and they have all earned their green cards.