Today was my last West Maui Caravan serving as West Maui Regional Director for our Realtor's Association of Maui. During this past year, I have seen a tremendous transformation in this weekly event and in my fellow Realtors. As we all know, these have been trying economic times, and the real estate market has been affected. Our weekly caravans have changed from being a forum where we preview listings and talk about market conditions, to a forum where we still do those things, but we help the community at the same time.
Let me explain how: Each year, the President of RAM selects a charitable cause for our organization to support. The Wishing Well began with Sarah Sorenson and her vision to unite Maui public school students with the resources they need to better their education. Several realtors volunteered to become school coordinators and began to learn about the needs, some individual and some collective, of the Maui community's schools. Coordinators range from parents to concerned community members, and they have spent many volunteer hours making contact with the schools and teachers, and have even gone so far to join the PTSA. As West Maui is a fairly small geographic community, the school coordinators Toni Johnson, Siu Whitehead, Bev Will, Barb Potts, Gayle Shufeldt, Pearl Gore, and Judy Gibbs formed the West Maui Wishing Well Committee, and were meeting weekly to discuss their efforts and put together Wishlists for their schools.
I was new to the RAM board, and my role was to act as conduit between the board and members of the West Maui real estate community, by relaying information between our weekly caravan meetings and the RAM board meetings. During one of these meetings, it was brought up that many school children do not have enough money to purchase lunch. While it is true that students technically don't go without lunch, the schools make up the deficit. This often results in less money for much needed educational programs. It was brought up that we often serve food as an enticement at our weekly caravans, and that this money could be spent to better serve the community by funding lunches--just $1/day is needed to provide lunch for a student.
At the next caravan, I brought the growing lunch fund deficit that West Maui Public Schools face to the attention of my fellow agents. The response of the members was immediate, with several agents pledging that day a dollar for each agent that stopped by to view their listing. These acts of generosity has continued at our weekly caravan ever since.
A group of agents got together to host a Kahana Ridge caravan, then a Summit Estates caravan, advertising in the local paper that a dollar would be donated for anyone that came to see the listing to the lunch fund. The response from the community was great, and several people indicated that they made a point of seeing these homes because of the Wishing Well donation.
Within weeks, we had raised enough money to cover the lunch fund deficit for that calendar year, and estimated deficit for the 2008-2009 fund for Princess Nahi'ena'ena Elementary School, King Kamehameha III Elementary School, and Lahaina Intermediate.
The West Maui Wishing Well Committee then set about trying to set very clear goals to which we would dedicate the caravans. As we were able to help the elementary and intermediate school, we shifted our focus to Lahainaluna High School. We were able to raise over $3000 from Caravans and community volunteer work projects for their Project Graduation 2008 event. Several West Maui realtors volunteered the night of the Project Graduation, assisting parents and organizers in providing a safe, alcohol-free environment to celebrate the graduation night. We were honored to have parents and organizers come in to the caravan to tell the realtors about the graduation celebration and to thank those members of the real estate community who volunteered their time. Realtor Volunteers expressed how much fun it was to interact with the graduates and to get to know members of the community.
We then focused on a school supply drive (which included Molokai and Lanai) and raising funds for books for the new school year, as many students don't have their own textbooks. And the biggest project of all: community work events to assist students in refreshing the dorms at Lahainaluna High School. We are hoping to find contractors to volunteer to fix faulty plumbing and electrical. Rooms need to be painted and furnishings updated. I believe the Lahainaluna boarding program is the only one of it's kind in the nation, with boarders from around the state and the Pacific. For the past two weeks, Realtors and community members have turned out to paint the dorm rooms along with students, and several remarked at our caravan this morning that it was extremely rewarding.
Finally, RAM is working on a web site which we hope will become a vehicle for schools to post their needs and for the public to find out about it. We hope to launch an ad campaign for the web site, encouraging members of the community to log on to find out what donations are needed and what community work events are planned.
Since we began collecting at the caravans just a few months ago, we have raised over $7500 dollars for the Maui Public Schools with approximately 75 agents participating to date, and more volunteering each week. I am continually awed that in face of challenging economic times, so many realtors have donated their time and resources to better the environment for Maui public school students. I am feel fortunate to work with my fellow West Maui Realtors and am so proud of what they've accomplished with our weekly caravans.
There is so much to do for the communities we call home. As someone who was born here on Maui, and attended public school, I know first-hand that there are shortages. However, I am grateful that I had access to the education that I did, and see this as a wonderful opportunity to give back. The Wishing Well for Maui Students allows all of us to contribute to the future success of our community by fostering a better educational environment for our students.
Portions of this blog appeared originally in an article I wrote for the HawaiiRealtor Journal, in September, 2008.
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