Photos: Make a Difference Day at UH Hilo
The UH Hilo community mobilized last Saturday for Make A Difference Day, a national day of volunteerism — 139 people spent a total of 371 hours working on five major projects.
By Staff/UH Hilo Stories.
The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo community mobilized last weekend to participate in Make A Difference Day, a national day of volunteerism held Oct. 22.
Make a Difference Day, a national initiative of Points of Light, has been coordinated at UH Hilo by the Campus Center since 1995 with the goal of making a difference on the campus each year. The annual event has been funded for many years by the Campus Center Fee Board.
This year, the UH Hilo effort was headed by Maile Boggeln, interim campus and community service coordinator.
“We had 139 people spend a total of 371 hours working on five major projects,” says Boggeln.
The volunteers were four UH Hilo Athletics teams (baseball, softball, tennis and golf), two registered student organizations (Sociology Club and Delta Sigma Pi), three student charter groups (Student Activities Council, Board of Student Publications, and Board of Media Broadcasting) and numerous other students, faculty, staff and members of the local community.
Kīpuka mala
UH Hilo students from Kīpuka Native Hawaiian Student Center were taught by Kumu Shari Frias and her haumāna (students) from Nā Wai Ola Public Charter School to grow the Kīpuka māla (garden) to help feed the campus community. The group built new organic māla beds from pūmaiʻa and waiawī stakes, planted 40 kalo, built a hale for ipu to grow, and pulled invasive plants to make room for native plants like kupukupu, lauaʻe, and palapalai. The UH Hilo men’s baseball and golf teams helped in the Kīpuka garden.
Student Life Center
The fern garden surrounding the Student Life Center was weeded and cleaned up making more room for the lauaʻe to grow and be healthy. This task was completed by the UH Hilo Women’s Softball team.
UH Botanical Gardens
There were several small projects going on in the UH Hilo Botanical Gardens at Lanikaula Street. The UH Hilo Sociology Club and members of the upcoming charter of the Lions Club (to be formed this semester) removed vines from trees, pulled weeds and collected trash from the area.
General cleanup
Almost all of the participants took part in a general cleanup on campus looking for trash and cigarette butts. The primary areas that were covered were the University Classroom Building, Campus Center, The Library, Edith Kanakaʻole Hall and the Performing Arts Center.
The groups collected six 55-gallon bags of trash, five truckloads of green waste, and three gallons of cigarette butts.
Bulletin boards
Students from Delta Sigma Pi spent the day working on cleaning up all of the school bulletin boards, taking down old flyers and removing staples and reorganizing new flyers so the boards are functional again.
Hilo Bay Front
Members of University Housing and other UH Hilo students held a beach clean-up on Bay Front. The group collected trash and other debris that had washed up due to the recent storms that have hit Hilo.
