‘Adopt an After-School Club’ Program Wins International Rotary Award

Michelle Gibson’s book-publishing club.

Adopt an After-School Club, a mentoring program offering a variety of free activities for students at four elementary schools on Kaua‘i, has been honored by Rotary International with a Significant Achievement Award in May.

For the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay, it was the second consecutive year, and the fourth time in eight years, that the 70-member club won that prestigious honor. Last year, the club won for Adopt a Classroom, which provides $700 to each adopted teacher, to pay for classroom supplies and a field trip.

Adopt an After-School Club and Adopt a Classroom were recently spun off from Rotary, and are now operated and funded by Aloha Angels, a donor advised fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation. In two months, Aloha Angels has raised $237,000.

Lydia Osakoda’s gardening club.

The after-school program was suggested to Hanalei Rotary by Kilauea Principal Sherry Gonsalves, to create a sense of belonging and community among students. During the past school year, 87 percent of that school’s 300 students participated.

Clubs were also offered to elementary students in Koloa and Hanalei, and at Kanuikapono Public Charter School in Anahola. For next year, through Aloha Angels, five clubs have also been funded at Kapa‘a Elmentary and ‘Ele‘ele. The clubs at Kapa‘a, and all 69 classrooms at Kapa‘a Elementary and Kekaha, are being adopted by the Rotary Club of Kapa‘a Foundation.

According to its president, Ric Cox, Aloha Angels aims to fund at least five after-school clubs at all 13 public elementary schools on Kaua‘i. At $1,100 per club, to pay teachers to mentor a club for up to 36 weeks, that goal can be achieved for $71,500. For an additional $94,500, the remaining 135 of Kaua‘i’s 290 public elementary classrooms can be adopted.

Visit Facebook.com/AlohaAngels or e-mail Cox at AlohaAngelsFund@gmail.com for more information.