News
Club Member Wally Wong Receives Special Rotary Award
WALLY WONG OF ROTARY CLUB OF HILO NAMED AS STATE-WIDE ROTARY AWARDEE
 
It’s not enough to make it to Rotary meetings. It’s not enough to manage a single service project. It’s not enough to help our local community. In order to win the annual recognition by Rotary’s State-wide district, you have to be a Super Rotarian!
 
Rotary has five “avenues of service” in every club. “Club Service” is directly helping a person’s own club. Being a Greeter, supporting every club event, helping new members find their way. “Vocational Service” means sponsoring vocational outings for club members, helping our youth learn about job opportunities, helping workers work better in their jobs. “Community Service” is just what one would expect… beach clean-ups, backpacks filled with school supplies for needy students, feeding our Kupuna. “Youth Service” brings free books to Kindergarteners, student dictionaries to third graders and even renovating run-down classrooms. “International Service” supports projects around the world, creates opportunities for foreign youth to visit Hilo, promoting peace between cultures.
 
Wally Wong, a Rotarian since 1995, was awarded the annual District “Avenues of Service” Award for his outstanding work in ALL the five areas of service. Only one Rotarian out of 1,600 Hawaii members in 53 clubs around the islands is recognized annually for this prestigious award. The Rotary Club of Hilo is proud to acknowledge Wally’s dedicated work over his 27 years of Rotary membership. Ho'omaika'i 'ana, Wally!
 
Caption for photo:
Wally Wong (holding the Rotary Award) is congratulated (l-r) by Beverly Heikes, Club President, Past District Governor Naomi Masuno., and Nancy Cabral, Past Club President. Only one Rotarian is awarded this honor each year out of all the 1600 plus members in the state. Congrats, Wally!
RCOH Awards $16,000 to Two Nonprofits
ROTARY CLUB OF HILO AWARDS $16,000 TO TWO NON-PROFITS
 
The Rotary Club of Hilo presented two checks of $8,000 each to their annual signature beneficiaries at the November 19th club meeting. The Hilo Medical Center Foundation’s Primary Care Physician Training and the Friends of the Children’s Justice Center of East Hawaii were on hand for the awarding of the Hilo Brewfest’s annual fundraiser.
 
(l-r) Bob Hanley, Brewfest Committee Chair; Beverly Heikes, current Club President; Tim Beatty, Club Foundation Chair; Robin Benedict, Professional Staff of the Friends of the CJCEH; Nancy Cabral, Immediate Past Club President; Lisa Rantz, Club member and Hilo Medical Foundation Executive Director; and Marcia Prose, Club member and current President of the Friends.
100 years and counting!
100 years of Service Above Self
 
100 years ago, on December 1, 1920 the Rotary Club of Hilo
became the second club in the Territory of Hawai’i .  
 THE HILO HOTEL, 1920
  Carl S. Carlsmith was named the first President and meetings were held at the old Hilo Hotel.,Over the 100 years, Rotary has been a vital part of the Hilo community. Many significant events and activities have grown our club from the original 13 men only members to nearly 100 members.  Almost half the members are women, including our current President, Nancy Cabral, who was also the first female member of the club back in 1988.
A few of our significant accomplishments include:
1949 - After the end of WWII, Carl Carlsmith wrote to   
   General Douglas MacArthur suggesting that restoring Japan to Rotary would foster World Peace.
   MacArthur agreed and at the 1949-50 International Rotary Conference, Japan was welcomed back into
   Rotary. Five years later (1955), our club sponsored the Rotary Club of Hiroshima.
1955 – Founded the Boys Club of Hilo. Today it is the Boys and Girls Club of Hilo.
1970-71 – Established the sister-city Rotary relationship with Hiroshima South.  
1981 – Served Christmas meals for Kamana Senior Citizens Center. The tradition continues for 40 years.
1997 – Participated in the reforestation of native Koa forest on Mauna Kea above Hakalau.
1999 – Partnered with other Rotarians to sponsor a water purification system in India.
2005 – Teamed with the other east Hawaiʻi Rotary Clubs to clean a shoreline area to create Kūhiō
   Kalanianaʻole Park (Rotary Centennial Park).
2009 – Founded first major Club Fundraiser for several years – with the monies raised going to the Hilo
   Medical Center Rural Residency Program and other projects through the Club’s Foundation.
2013 – Initiated the Rotary Global Peace Forum held in Honolulu.
2013 – Established the Club’s current fundraiser – Hilo Brewfest.
2016 – Served first Hawaiʻi Island Home for Recovery Thanksgiving meal, continuing today.
2017 – Donated $30,000 that went toward the purchase of Shelter Boxes, tents, shelter kits, and tarps
   helping 1764 Fijian households after the devastating earthquake.
2018 – Helped to fund the Global TeleMedicine Project, our club recognized for District International Service.
2019 – Established a satellite Rotary Club – the “Social Squad”
2020 – Developed a video to coordinate with and support Dictionaries for Youth.
2020 – Cooking meals twice a week for the Hawaiʻi Island Home for Recovery, ongoing.
2020 – Creating alternative methods of delivery to continue Reading in Kindergarten, ongoing.
2020 – Helping with the Rotary COVID response in our community. (see below!)
 
NEW MEMBERS
Our meetings are all by Zoom... kind of hard to take great photos of new members!
Welcome to three new members during December!
 
DANIELLE PRESTON - Education
SHAUN O’BRIEN - Sun Construction
AARON BLAKE - Sun Construction
 
 
SPECIAL AWARDS!
CHARLENE and AMOS MEYERS

This amazing couple was honored with the “White Hat” Rotary International Award during our last Zoom meeting.
 
IN THE COMMUNITY!
“GO COOK ‘EM CREW”
Rotarians and Community Members help cook meals every Thursday for residents at the Hawaii Island Home for Recovery. These chefs also cooked up a great Thanksgiving Day Feast.
 
100 MONTHLY "THINGS" UPDATE
 
120+ Trees Planted around town!
 
100 Hygiene Bags for Homeless Women assisted by UHH Delta Sigma Pi
 
PLUS....
175 boxes of Food distributed to the community.
 
100 people attended our Dec. 1 100th Anniversary meeting... by ZOOM!
Busy in October
OCTOBER HAPPENINGS
 
New Members
Our meetings are all by Zoom... kind of hard to take great photos of new members!  Welcome to four new members during October!
 
PATTI BRAY
Hilo Medical Center Foundation
 
IZZY HUERTAS
Hawaii Home for Recovery
 
LARA HUGHES
First Hawaiian Bank
 
LEANA POHEVITZ
Law Student
 
 
“GO COOK ‘EM CREW”
Rotarians and Community Members help cook meals every Thursday for residents at the Hawaii Home for Recovery. October 29 gave everyone an opportunity to have a bit of Halloween fun!
 
UPDATE ON OUR "100 THINGS"
 
OCTOBER GOAL: 100 MASKS
RESULT: 1317 MASKS!
Thanks to all who contributed!
 
NOVEMBER GOAL: 100 TREES PLANTED
 
You can be a part of the count! If you plant a tree in November, let us know on our website: hilorotary.org
 
ROTARY MEANS BUSINESS
 
You may have noticed that all our new members are always paired with either the business they represent or with their areas of service. Check us out!
 
Alarm & Access Control Technologies ~ Bay House Bed and Breakfast
BJ Penn Enterprises ~ C. Y. Shikuma, MD, Inc. ~ Century 21 Homefinders of Hawaii
Chris Brilhante Realty LLC ~ Church of the Holy Cross UCC
Coldwell Banker Island Properties ~ Converged Telcom ~ County of Hawaii
CU Hawaii FCU ~ Day-Lum Rentals & Management, Inc. ~ Dept. of Human Services
Department of Water Supply ~ Dodo Mortuary, Inc.
Double H Printed Products, LLC ~ First Hawaiian Bank  ~ Global Offsite Care Hawaii Electric Light Company ~ Hawaii Fire Department
Hawaii Fresh Products, Inc. ~ Hawaii Island Home for Recovery
Hawaii Printing / Instant Sign Center ~ Hawaiian Telecom
Healing Hands Publishing ~ Hilo Hearing Aid ~ Hilo Medical Center Foundation  Hilo Surplus Store ~ Homelani Memorial Park ~ I Kitagawa & Co ~ Images of Hawaii
Iokua Real Estate ~ K&J Tire Center Inc ~ Kama’aina Motors & Kamaaina Nissan
Kilauea Military Camp ~ Lex Brodie's Tire Co ~ Naomi's World Travel Service
Orchid Isle Auto Center ~ Palace Theater ~ Ron Dolan, CPA & Associates, Inc.
Salvation Army ~ Student at CUNY School of Law ~ Subway Sandwiches
Torkildson Katz Hetherington Harris Knorek Chu
University of Hawaii at Hilo ~ Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii (VASH)
Waiakea Uka Bible Church ~ Wong Way Farms
Yamanaka Enterprise ~ YWCA of Hawaii Island
COVID AND ROTARY
Responding to the Covid Pandemic in Our Community
 
DICTIONARIES FOR THIRD GRADE
Every year, our club provides free dictionaries to over 200 third grade students in our community. Rotarians show up in the classrooms, give out the dictionaries and provide a “walk through” of the contents. But this year, COVID struck and we could not visit students, many of whom are not even back in the classrooms again.
 
 
SOLUTION? create a fun video for students to view online!
  A “casting call” went out to the club and ten club stars showed up for the filming! A clever video of live action and cartoon images is now available for the students to watch. Good work, everyone!
 
 
READING IN KINDERGARTEN
And it was the same problem for us in classroom reading. Plans are now being made for Rotarians to be videotaped reading the books. Several times a year, each student receives a copy of the month’s book that is being read.
 
 
KEIKI HEROES
The NexTech STEM program, which is supported in part by our club, is collaborating in the Covid-19 response with needed PPE inventions and production. In addition, an outreach by way of cartoon "Keiki Heroes" has been created to help educate children about staying safe during this Covid pandemic. Good work, STEM team!
 
 
ROTARY MASKS
Rotary Masks were sold for $10 with the proceeds going to the Salvation Army food program.
 
COOKING LUNCHES

Rotary club members and UHH Athletes have been cooking up some delicious meals for the Hilo Hawaii Home for Recovery.
 
SUPPORTING COMMUNITY FOOD PROGRAMS
Our Rotary club was tasked with spending $6000 in Covid relief in the community.
 
$2000 went to an emergency needs COVID KOKUA project.
 
$4000 is going to an innovative farm to table type project.
Local farmers in the BRIDGES program will provide $2000 each worth of locally grown food to the Salvation Army and the Food Basket.
 
100 THINGS
 
As we’ve talked about before, this year our Rotary Club is 100 years old! And to celebrate, we plan to gather 100 “THINGS” that are needed in the community. In September, we tried for 100 cans of SPAM and 100 POUNDS of canned foods.
WE DID IT, AND YOU HELPED!
126 cans of SPAM and 197 POUNDS of canned food was collected
and given to the Food Basket!
 
 
WHAT IS THE TARGET FOR OCTOBER?  
 
100 MASKS!

Want to donate? Drop off masks at Day Lum at 2 Kam Ave or at Hawaii Printing Corp at 714 Kanoelehua Avenue.
 
INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR CLUB?
We are meeting by ZOOM these days on every other Friday at noon. Drop us a note at our website: hilorotary.org

Malama Honua
celebrating Our 95th Anniversary

The Hilo Rotary Club Foundation presents a donation to Pwo Navigator and Captain of the Polynesian Voyaging Canoe, Hokule'a, to help fund their educational programs on their Malama Honua worldwide voyage.  (Left to right:  Bruce Blankenfeld, Donald Demuth of the Hilo Rotary Club Foundation, and Club President, Wally Wong)
 

Edmund Olson is recognized with The Rotary Club of Hilo's Malama Honua award for his efforts in caring for our aina.
 
     “Malama Honua” (to care for our earth) is the theme that we have chosen to celebrate our club's 95th anniversary.  Along with Rotary International's theme -- “Be a Gift to the World” -- we are inspired as we start this new Rotary year.
     President Wally Wong has sought out community service projects that will build a more sustainable community.  Projects such as building a vegetable garden for residents of a shelter to clearing illegally dumped trash in a vacant cul-de-sac area in Hilo.  We hope to be an example to other organizations and the community, that in order to stop and smell the flowers, we have to occasionally bend down to pull the weeds or pick up the trash.
     These are just a few of the many projects that the Rotary Club of Hilo has planned as it follows the Polynesian Voyaging canoe, Hokule’a, on its Malama Honua sail around the world.  On its worldwide voyage, the Hokule’a will grow and join the global movement towards a more sustainable world.
     Two individuals who embody the principles of Malama Honua were honored at our Officer Installation:  Bruce Blankenfeld, Pwo navigator and Captain of the Hokule’a for his leadership and efforts to educate our youth and  Edmund C. Olson of the Edmund C. Olson Trust II for providing agricultural opportunities and building a sustainable future for Hawaii Island.
Please Join Us

Service Above Self - Since 1920

We meet In Person
Fridays at 12:00 PM
Hilo Hawaiian Hotel -- WSW Steakhouse
71 Banyan Drive
Hilo, HI 96720
United States of America
See Club Calendar for dates
Venue Map
Mailing Address
 
Rotary Club of Hilo
PO Box 7476
Hilo, HI  96720
July 2022
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July 8, 2022
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Berger, Peg
 
Greeter 1
Phillips, Genie
 
Greeter 2
Tajiri, Helene
 
July 22, 2022
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Breyfogle, Treena
 
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Tanouye, Jen
 
August 5th, 2022
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Tajiri, Helene
 
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Guillen, Patrick
 
August 19th, 2022
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August 26th, 2022
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Munro, Susan
 
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Glass, Kerry
 
September 2nd, 2022
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Tajiri, Helene
 
September 16th, 2022
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Scott, Dee
 
September 23rd, 2022
Greeter 1
Breyfogle, Treena
 
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October 7th, 2022
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October 21st, 2022
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Jul 22, 2022
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