PO‘IPU — Kaua‘i High School Academy of Hospitality and Travel students were teaching guests at the Sheraton a new way water can be turned into snowflakes, Wednesday. The students were at the resort as part of the Teen Concierge program.
PO‘IPU — Kaua‘i High School Academy of Hospitality and Travel students were teaching guests at the Sheraton a new way water can be turned into snowflakes, Wednesday.
The students were at the resort as part of the Teen Concierge program. They came armed with information and an abundance of assistance for guests who were intrigued with how plastic water bottles were transformed into colorful snowflakes.
Elizabeth Freeman, chairperson for the Festival of Lights display at the Historic County Building, said she was scheduled for a meeting with the AOHT students earlier this year, and in a last-minute gesture, grabbed some plastic bottles out of her recycling bin.
“The students took the idea and ran with it,” she said. “They even created a tree topper and decorated a tree at the Festival of Lights.”
Sunday night, the AOHT students served as greeters for the final two nights’ run at the festival and one of the students manned the stairs leading to Council Chambers, armed with handouts and samples of the H2O flakes.
Cathy Morishige, director of the AOHT program, said funding for the students’ H2O flakes came from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority which enabled the students to acquire supplies for the recycling project that has soared to the next level.
In addition to the tree at the historic County Building, the AOHT students also decorated a tree which sits in the Ocean Lobby of the Sheraton Kaua‘i.
“The biggest thing, though, was last Friday when a lady visiting the Festival of Lights said a tree like this should be sent to Washington, D.C.,” Morishige said.
A lot of the displays at the historic County Building were created by the late Josie Chansky using recycled materials, Morishige said. The students embraced the recycling concept and have now taken the H2O flakes to the next level.
“We’re trying to speak with legislators and other leaders about decorating trees in more resorts and even at the state capitol,” Morishige said. “But before that, we need to come up with some basic Hawaiian concepts from which to grow.”
