PUHI — A full day of toil in the Westside heat didn’t slow down the basketball players from St. John’s School, Monday night. Coming on the heels of volleyball practice by the Island School team, Guy Higa collected players from
PUHI — A full day of toil in the Westside heat didn’t slow down the basketball players from St. John’s School, Monday night.
Coming on the heels of volleyball practice by the Island School team, Guy Higa collected players from Island School, Kaua‘i and Kapa‘a high schools for pick-up games against the St. John’s School players.
“The boys want to play,” Higa said. “Especially if the opponents are not from here. Some of the guys will be coming from volleyball practice and some of the guys are already here.”
St. John’s School arrived with 13 juniors and seniors over the weekend to spend a week volunteering with the Kaua‘i Habitat for Humanity.
“At first, we thought we wanted to play volleyball since our basketball season just ended,” said Sukhbir Bolina, the coordinator for the group’s trip. “But the students wanted to play basketball since our teams did pretty well in our league this year.”
Monday night’s game was not the only game St. John’s will be participating in as Karen Matsumoto of the Kaua‘i Youth Basketball Association and Bobby Kamakele, coach of the Kaulupono program, teamed up to offer a series of games and a post-game potluck Tuesday night at the Kalaheo Neighborhood Center.
Skyler Bentley, one of the chaperones for St. John’s, said the group’s trip was inspired by Bolina’s trip with another group three years ago.
“St. John’s School is a private school located in Vancouver, Canada,” Bentley said. “We have about 180 students in grades 8 through 12. But we do have a basketball team, and since our season just ended, most the kids are now in track and field and volleyball.”
For this trip, Bolina brought over six girls and seven boys, several of whom were part of the school’s varsity basketball program.
“When Austin said they were going to play a Canadian team, I was expecting full uniforms and a big team,” said Don Taylor who was watching his son play in the goodwill games.
“This is his third sport, today, so he’s pretty tired, but he wanted to play.”
Instead of three sports, the St. John’s students spent their day digging a driveway for one of the Kaua‘i Habitat homes in ‘Ele‘ele, Bentley said.
“Tuesday we’re going to be doing roofing, painting and woodwork,” she said. “The Habitat people are arranging to have the students do something different every day so they have an opportunity to experience the different phases of construction.”
Bolina said the group will have Thursday off and Friday will be an early day because they will participate in a mahalo party at Salt Pond Beach Park before leaving Saturday night.
“Digging the driveway took all 15 of us,” Bentley said. “I didn’t think we would make it, but the kids were really good and we made it.”
Bolina said during the hard work under the broiling sun, the kids never complained and demonstrated great teamwork, working with each other to complete the task.
“This is a unique learning opportunity for them,” Bentley said. “A lot of these students have never used a shovel, wheelbarrow or a jack hammer.”
Bolina said this is a great opportunity for the students to have a unique learning experience while doing good for someone.
