“V” is for Valentine. “V” is also for volunteering, and yesterday, Valentine’s Day, about three dozen kindergarten students from Kapa‘a Elementary School got a taste of volunteerism. That taste didn’t have the bitterness usually associated with volunteering, and the students
“V” is for Valentine.
“V” is also for volunteering, and yesterday, Valentine’s Day, about three dozen kindergarten students from Kapa‘a Elementary School got a taste of volunteerism.
That taste didn’t have the bitterness usually associated with volunteering, and the students walked away with a gift from the Kaua‘i Food Bank following the hands-on experience at the Nawiliwili facility.
“Valentine’s Day is a day devoted to love,” said kindergarten teacher Nadine Roderick. “So we thought we would share love with someone the children don’t know. Some of the people who need food might be people they know.”
The field trip started out at the food bank where the students came armed, not expecting to become volunteers, with boxloads of food to help feed the hungry.
Kelvin Moniz of the Kaua‘i Food Bank thanked the students for their generosity which weighed out to about 90 pounds of food.
To supplement the tour and reinforce the students’ awareness of the problem of hungry people on the island, Moniz quickly set up a table so each of the three dozen students could experience volunteering to help feed people.
Young hands quickly got into the swing of the event as Moniz opened up a box of envelopes which needed folding.
“Do you know how many of these we go through in a year?” Moniz queried the young students. “We go through more than 127,000 of these in one year.”
The envelopes the kindergartners worked on will be used during the food bank’s spring direct mail drive, Moniz told the students.
“When your parents receive one of these in the mail, you can tell them you helped fold these,” he said.
Roderick said in addition to the food bank, the students had collected items which would be turned over to the Kaua‘i Humane Society, the second stop on the field trip.
“We heard they needed some things, and in addition to learning about pets, safety around animals, and getting to learn about the stray animals, we will be helping them, too,” Roderick said.
But the volunteering was not limited to the Kapa‘a Elementary School students as student leaders from Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School were lending their talent at the annual Seniors Valentine Party hosted by the County’s Parks and Recreation Department.
Robyn Leong, Brittney Carter, Anna Chong, Renee Sauceda and Kaila Funaki made up that group of students who joined the Parks and Recreation staff in hosting close to 200 seniors from around the island at the convention hall.
“School gets out at 11:30 because of parent conferences, but we’ll still be here,” the students who are part of the CKMS Leadership Council said.
Volunteering for the second straight year, the students said their task was to help with the food, mingle with the seniors and help them with whatever they needed and pick up trash.
Ray Domingo, known for his talent with the Dickie Hamada Starlighters, joined Stan and Marie Yadao in providing entertainment for the seniors who were treated to ballroom dancing, door prizes and a lunch with dessert from Contemporary Flavors Catering.
One of the treats was a visit from County Council members Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho and Mel Rapozo who spent time listening to concerns from seniors before joining them for lunch.
Lunch was also on the menu at Kapa‘a Middle School, but the highlight of the day was not the food, but the special Valentine’s Day dance hosted by the school’s PTSA, yetserday.
“The students all want to go,” said Annette Hashimoto, one of the school educational aides. “But, it’s a KMS students-only event, and since a lot of the girls in the Wailua girls basketball team come to this school, their game in Kilauea had to be re-scheduled.”
Hashimoto and Theresa Tacbian, the other educational aide, have a tradition of dressing up for major holidays, and on Valentine’s Day, did not disappoint their student and staff audience as the pair made rounds on campus dressed in red and embelished with accessories such as Coke bottle glasses and pink fuzzy heart bouncers.
“What you expect? This is Balingtine’s Day,” Tacbian said. “It’s the only Filipino holiday.”
Hashimoto said prior to Valentine’s Day, students could purchase either a rose or a candy bouquet which would be delivered via a secret admirer program within the school’s population.
“We do this on almost all the major holidays,” Hashimoto, who described their EA jobs as being “e-i, e-i, o’s.”
“During Christmas, we dress up the whole week, and if the holiday falls during a break, sometimes we dress up on the last day of school before the break,” Hashimoto said. “The students love it. We just came off Mardi Gras. We have a talent show, we do May Day, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, and even Thanksgiving.”
Some of the pair’s ‘ohana include Da Tuntas, Da Marys, and a host of other characters who bewilder the mind of school principal Nathan Aiwohi who stopped to greet Da Cupids on Valentine’s Day.
“Wen dey call me on da radio, I thought, ‘Oh no, wat we been do now? We going to detention.’” Hashimoto said. “We go detention all da time, but wen dey call on da radio, it means we gotta go to Da Office.”
But there was no detention, just a meeting with more fans.
“This is a day of love,” Roderick said. “We do this as a way to give something to someone instead of only getting. We give back to the community.”
