PO‘IPU — More than 500 ducks made a splash on Independence Day. They were racing, not to be free, but to earn prizes for their sponsors who paid for them at the Independence Day Duck Derby hosted by the Marriott
PO‘IPU — More than 500 ducks made a splash on Independence Day.
They were racing, not to be free, but to earn prizes for their sponsors who paid for them at the Independence Day Duck Derby hosted by the Marriott Waiohai Beach Club.
“This is one of three major fund-raisers the resort is active with,” said Chuck Brady, the resort’s human resources director and event chair. “All the Marriott take part in this event with the funds going to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network.”
Brady said in Hawai‘i, the Kapiolani Children’s Hospital is part of the Network, and Kaua‘i residents are familiar with the hospital on O‘ahu.
“The funds stay at home,” Brady said.
With all of the ducks paid for prior to the start of the derby, Brady said the resort will be presenting more than $1,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network.
He said the other two fund-raisers the Po‘ipu resort is active in are the annual Visitor Industry Charity Walk and the Kaua‘i United Way. He pointed out there are other community events the resort gets involved in, but not as actively.
Among the people in the audience, associates from the Kaua‘i Marriott Resort and Beach Club, watched as Christina Gabriel and Steve Prunty of the Waiohai’s engineering department fished out heat after heat of ducks that surged down an inflatable water feature set up by the Garden Angels.
They were on-hand to watch the process as they open up their resort for the annual duck race from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. yesterday.
Jolene Ogle, of the Kaua‘i Marriott Human Resource office, said there will be things going on at the Kalapaki resort throughout the day with proceeds going to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network.
“At first, we were thinking about using the waterfall by the pool,” Brady said. “But after checking out the water feature at the Operation Military Appreciation, this probably works out better.”
Ducks were broken down into bags each containing about 50 ducks, and were given to the inflatable operator who released the batch on Brady’s signal.
The top five ducks in each heat were kept in a practice pool at the bottom of the slide for the final race.
When the final mist settled, there were five prizes awarded to the first five ducks who slid down the inflatable to the waiting hands of Jenni Saguid of the Waiohai Human Resources Office.
Brady said the inflatable would remain on the resort ground throughout the day to enable the guests and their children to have something special for Independence Day.
“It’s all a work in progress,” he said. “Wait until next year. It’ll be bigger and better.”
