Photos: At Mālama ʻĀina Campus Beautification Day, members of UH Hilo ʻohana work together, care for gardens
Pele Harman, UH Hilo’s new director of Native Hawaiian engagement who headed the volunteer event, says, “No kākou kēia wahi. Na kākou nō e mālama. This is our place. We shall take care of it.”
By Susan Enright.
On Friday, Aug. 9, the new director of Native Hawaiian engagement at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo put out the call for the campus community’s participation in a volunteer Mālama ʻĀina Campus Beautification Day.
“As we excitedly prepare to welcome our new students to our campus and perhaps reflect on how we felt when we started our post-secondary journeys, we would like to ask for everyone’s kōkua in the spirit of laulima (many hands working together),” says Pelehonuamea “Pele” Harman in her email invitation to the university’s ʻohana.
Help was needed with weeding, raking, trimming of trees and plants, and removing debris. Harman encouraged all to sign up for the Aug. 15 event, no matter their abilities. “We will focus on a specific area that has been identified as needing our aloha.”
“Like the ʻōlelo noʻeau goes: ʻAʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia. (No task is too great when we work together.),” Harman writes in her email invitation.
And the response was wonderful. Over 90 people signed up to meet at Mookini Library’s lanai last Thursday afternoon for the four-hour event. Members of the UH Hilo ʻohana from across campus showed up and got to work; students including a group of Vulcan athletes, members of the faculty, administrators and staff, all joined in.
Staff from UH Hilo Auxiliary Services provided their expertise along with mowers, pruning sheers, weed trimmers and other equipment, all at the ready.
“On behalf of Auxiliary Services I wanted to take a moment to express my deepest appreciation for [Pele’s] leadership organizing the Mālama ʻĀina Campus Beautification Day,” says William Walters,
director of Auxiliary Services, in an email blast sent out after the event. “Your team’s hard work, particularly in the realm of the very detailed landscaping around Campus Center and the Library Lanai, has made a palpable difference, transforming it into a more serene and aesthetically pleasing environment for everyone.”
Walters notes the dedication of those who came to pitch in. “The magnitude of our campus volunteers was truly remarkable. From their preparation to the meticulous attention to detail in every aspect of the work, their commitment was both humbling and awe inspiring. The energy and enthusiasm really created an atmosphere of collective effort and strong collaboration.”
No kākou kēia wahi. Na kākou nō e mālama.
Harman, a UH Hilo Hawaiian studies alumna whose position is newly created as part of the Hawai’i Papa o Ke Ao team established throughout the statewide 10-campus UH System to help develop UH as a leader in Indigenous education, says the event made her proud to be part of the UH Hilo ʻohana.
“The ALOHA exhibited by all at our first Mālama ʻĀina day of this 2024-25 school year was palpable,” she writes in a thank you sent after the event by email blast to the UH Hilo community. “The sense of kuleana and community was evident: I met spouses of faculty members, student-athletes, newly hired staff and long-time pouhana (post/support for the house; Fig: support or mainstay) of our university.”
Expressing “Mahalo, mahalo, and mahalo again,” Harman gives a special shout out to Walters and the Auxiliary Services crew, the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center and Haleʻōlelo (the home of Ka Haka ʻUla o Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language) crews, the Mālama ʻĀina committee, and community members for contributing to the overall success of the event.
Plans are already underway for the next Mālama ʻĀina day in October.
“The verdant beauty that now graces our campus stands as a testament to everyone’s hard work, and we are all deeply grateful,” says Walters. “This work has been more than a simple enhancement; it has instilled a renewed sense of pride in our campus.”
Harman echos the sentiment. “No kākou kēia wahi. Na kākou nō e mālama. (This is our place. We shall take care of it.)”
Susan Enright is a public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
