You may see a number of people out and about in your community on June 19th. They will be there for a good reason.
For the second year, volunteers with Kanu Hawaii will be providing elbow grease to create a more liveable Hawaii.
"Kanu Hawaii is a non-profit organization. Our mission is to develop a massive community of people who are personally committed to building a more compassionate, sustainable and self-reliant Hawaii,” said James Koshiba of Kanu Hawaii.
Kanu Hawaii began as an on line effort but it has since grown into a hands-on series of projects.
"The vision of this campaign is to have hundreds and even thousands of people volunteering en masse on June 19th in a series of projects. We have projects on every populated Hawaiian island except for Niihau,” said Koshiba.
One of those islands will be Lanai where we often think life is idyllic.
The fact is, Lanai's groundwater is suffering.
"Today, there are a lot of invasive weeds that are really choking out the native plants and absorbing a lot of that fog drip which makes it very difficult for the aquifer to replenish itself,” said Anthony Pacheco of Kanu Hawaii.
That's why Anthony and his troops will be headed to Lanai Hale to dig out invasive species like strawberry guava so that the native plants can do their job and bring more water to the aquifer.
For the second year, Anne Heslinga will be continuing her work at a Manoa transition house to help out moms with kids on the 19th.
She says sustainable relationships are just as important as a sustainable environment.
"In addition to helping clean the housing program, we'll be playing games with the moms and we'll be doing arts and crafts with the kids and we'll be having a pot luck lunch after everyone's done cleaning,” said Anne Heslinga of Kanu Hawaii.
The work of Kanu Hawaii may be more important than ever.
"We're at a moment right now where with state budget cuts and donations shrinking and the needs in communities rising, non-profit organizations and community groups are relying more heavily on volunteers to get important work done,” said Koshiba.
