WAILUA — Denise Tripoli, a telephone book recycling coordinator, said having 17 trees planted along the Lydgate soccer park will make a difference. Tripoli showed off plaques sponsored by Kukui‘ula Development Co. that will name each participating school in the
WAILUA — Denise Tripoli, a telephone book recycling coordinator, said having 17 trees planted along the Lydgate soccer park will make a difference.
Tripoli showed off plaques sponsored by Kukui‘ula Development Co. that will name each participating school in the phonebook recycling campaign and be placed at the base of the trees.
The tree-planting effort was just one of three phases of the Make A Difference Day project, Saturday, coordinated by the Friends of Kamalani and Lydgate Park.
“We have more than 80 volunteers who turned out to help,” said Elle Vitt, a project leader who got help from the East Kaua‘i Y’s Men’s Club in registering the volunteers. “There are groups painting the picnic tables in Lydgate Park, more groups helping with the tree planting in the soccer park and another group is at the Kamalani Kai Bridge.”
Tripoli said in addition to trees lining Leho Drive, each end of the park had two larger trees planted.
“It looked like Iwo Jima,” Tripoli said. “They struggled to get those big trees in.”
Other teams tended to trees that were planted during last year’s Make A Difference Day.
Doug Haigh was checking on the status of the drip irrigation on the established trees and the team of Melissa Barker, her daughter Hana, and Savannah Tripoli formed the mulch team.
Ray Carpenter of the Rotary Club of Kapa‘a was among the volunteers at the Kamalani Kai Bridge where the more strenuous work of replacing eroded sand and planting ground cover to prevent future erosion was taking place.
“This is great,” Vitt said. “The hard part was getting the word out.”
Another Make A Difference Day project takes place Saturday at two Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity home sites on Moi Road in Hanapepe Heights.
“Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity is going to be participating in the USA Weekend Magazine’s ‘Make A Difference Day,’” said Janis Benn, volunteer coordinator for Americorp VISTA at Kaua‘i Habitat. “This will be an amazing day of building on two homes and we have space for just 30 volunteers.”
Benn said the association of university women have already planned on participating, but there is space for more volunteers.
Melinda Uohara said the Zonta Club of Kaua‘i will be conducting its Friends of Henry and Jeanette Weinberg 2009 Project at the Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore facility in Hanapepe.
“We will be helping organize, sort items, price and tag items for sale in the store,” Uohara said in an e-mail. “As a result of the service project, the Zonta Club of Kaua‘i will receive $10,000 from the Henry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation.”
Uohara said the Service Committee of the Zonta Club selected the Hale ‘Opio Street Smart program to be the beneficiary of the $10,000 contribution.
There will be two programs, one in Waimea and one in Lihu‘e, with each being 12 sessions each. The program is for at-risk girls ages 12 to 18 with between 10 to 14 girls in each program.
During the six-week program, girls will learn to build life skills, have personal counseling, community health center visit and more with the aim of helping young ladies to make better decisions regarding reproductive health and certain substances, strengthen their harm-reduction skills and build positive peer support.
Benn said the Kaua‘i Habitat project has been recognized by one of the event sponsors, Newman’s Own, as the recipient of a meal donation.
Newman’s Own recognizes one project per state and Kaua‘i Habitat’s project was selected for Hawai‘i. They will help start the morning off right by providing breakfast for the volunteers, Benn said.
Make A Difference Day is the most encompassing national day of helping others, states its Web site. Everyone can participate in a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors.
Created by USA Weekend Magazine, Make A Difference Day is an annual event taking place on the fourth Saturday of every October.
In 2008, 3 million people cared enough about their communities to volunteer on that day, together accomplishing thousands of projects in hundreds of towns.
For more information on volunteering with the Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity’s project, call Benn at 335-0296.
For more information on Make A Difference Day, visit www.usaweekend.com/diffday.
