WAILUKU — Hui Malama Learning Center is sporting a new look thanks to one of the Rotary Club of Maui’s most ambitious service projects in its 70-year history.
With finishing touches put on the decks of the building above Maui Memorial Medical Center March 29, the club ended seven Saturdays of work that began in October.
And to frost the cake, the Rotarians were back at the site Saturday to remove old signs and install footings for a new one that was donated by Chris Hart, whose landscape, architecture and planning business is in Wailuku. That workday was part of the statewide Service Above Self Saturday conducted by Hawaii’s Rotary clubs.
The seven-Saturday spruce-up at Hui Malama involved more than 450 volunteer hours, said the project coordinator and the club’s president-elect, Michael Nason.
They pressure-washed and did other preparations for the paint job, which included exterior walls, a classroom, stairways and wheelchair ramps. The club also installed three air-conditioning units, repaired a roof over a classroom, and replaced screens and a broken office window.
“We are thrilled and grateful,” said Pualani Enos, Hui Malama’s executive director. “For the past year, we have been working to raise funds to make much-needed building improvements. The Rotary Club’s willingness to help us with this endeavor through performing service and providing additional equipment and supplies allows us to proceed with improvements that we have not been able to accomplish on our own.
“Because of the Rotary, we are able to leverage the donations that we received from last’s year’s building-improvement donor campaign to make an immediate and significant change in our surroundings,” she noted.
Several businesses and individuals supported the project.
“I want to especially thank ABC roofing for providing materials and Beachside roofing for the labor; and Royal Hawaiian Movers for help with transporting the lift used to spray the upper level of the building; and Rob Marshall of Royal Hawaiian Movers for his extraordinary help,” Nason said.
Hui Malama Learning Center is a United Way agency. Since it was created in 1973, primarily to address the academic needs of teen mothers, it has expanded its scope and provided alternative educational services to more 20,000 Maui County residents, more than half of them at-risk youths.
