October 2016

Adopt a Block & Urban Garden Blog: Launching the School Year's First Adopt a Block Cl...

Adopt a Block & Urban Garden Blog: Launching the School Year's First Adopt a Block Cl...: Huakailani Girls kicked 1,062 cigarette butts out from Hekili Street in Kailua! The school has been participating in the Adopt-a-Block pro...

2009 - 2014 Adopt-A Block Celebrating 5 Years

In 2009, Huakailani held its first Adopt A Block in September 2009.

The Adopt a Block is an Official City and County Program and our adoption of Hekili Street is posted on two permanent street signs at each end of Hekili Street.

In September 2009, we filled 11 bags of trash from Hekili Street.

In January 2010, we noticed how a significant amount of trash on the street were cigarette butts and learned about the negative effects of cigarette butt pollution . In the 2009-2010 school year, in just 6 months time we removed 4,241 cigarette butts.

Flash forward to May 2014 and you see Huakailani still diligently holding 4 clean ups a school year and removing cigarette butts from the area.

At the May 2014 clean up, we collected just 1 bag of trash and over a 10 month period of time found
1, 878 cigarette butts. That is 2, 161 cigarette butts less than the school year total from last year.

* Note: 1/2009 Stat is for only 6 Months. 5/201 Data is for 10 months.

Congratulations Huakailani School for Girls on a successful five years and many more to come.

We are making a difference and being the change we want to see!

Mrs. B.  brought the program to the school in 2009 and has been the lead coordinator for past 5 years. She now passes the "Adopt a Block" coordination onto Ms. Stivers in 2014-2015.  Of course, she will continue to be an Adopt-a-Block Volunteer.

Ara and Mrs. B - Adopt A Block Volunteers for 5 Years!

2013-2014 Plant Your Butts Here

Although we keep finding many cigarette butts littering Hekili Street, this school year, we have found less than 700 butts littering the streets at each clean up.

Way to go Huakailani!

October 16, 2013 Adopt a Block

Adopt a Block - March 2013

Another great adopt a Block Clean Up!

 Cigarette butt count was higher than in November. 850 were found this time. Most of the butts were found in the Bowling Alley Parking Lot.

Here is a picture of the filters that do not biodegrade. They are eaten by birds who mistake them for food and are used to make nests. The toxins from the filters cause eggs not to hatch. The filters get lodged in the stomachs of the birds.

Drop in cigarette butt numbers!

Last time (August 24 Adopt A Block) we found  1,795 cigarette butts....

This time we only found 689. 

We found 1,106 fewer butts on Hekili Street on November 17th.  WAY TO GO!

The girls also placed 3 new planters in the Whole Foods area.

2 planters placed in the "Popoi'a Street Storm Water Retrofit Project"

The Huakailani Girls made and delivered two Cigarette Planters. The Hui Koo'laupoko's Popoi'a Street Storm Water Retrofit project  requested our planters to collect cigarette butts before they run off into the water.                                

Learn more about the project here: http://www.huihawaii.org/kaelepuluproject.html

Popoi'a Street Storm Water Retrofit Project 

 5th and 6th graders represented the school and delivered planters at the Sign Unveiling Ceremony.

 Looking at the new signs!

 Great spot for a Cigarette Butt Planter!

 The girls selected the sites for the planters. They already found some cigarette butts littering the area.

Increase in Cigarette Butts Found

There has been an increase in the number of butts we have found polluting the streets. We think there is an increase due to the following reasons:

1) Increase in tourist activity in town

2) Opening of new store in neighborhood - Whole Foods - bringing more foot traffic and customer traffic into the area

This increase in the number of people coming into town we believe has contributed to the increase we have found in the number of cigarette butts that are littering the area.

Solution:
We have targeted several new areas for cigarette butt planters to be placed.

Plant Your Butts Here Mentioned in Another Book!

The Plant Your Butts campaign will be mentioned in another book being written by Talia Leman -CEO of Random Kids (Simon and Schuster). We are very excited.

Exciting News! We will be in a service learning book!

Cathy Berger-Caye, International Service Learning Consultant and Author,  will be highlighting our “Plant Your Butts Here” Service Learning Project in her next book. She has also been sharing about our Huakailani School Project all over the world when she speaks.

Recipient of Inspirational Spirit Award, Learn & Serve America 2005 , Author, The Complete Guide to Service Learning, Awarded Seal of Excellence by Council for Service-Learning Excellence, Going Blue: A Teen Guide to Saving our Oceans, Lakes, Rovers and Wetlands with Philippe Cousteau and the Free Spirit Series Service Learning for Kids.

6 New Planters!

6 new planters have been placed on Hekili Street!

Butt patrol » Honolulu Weekly

Butt patrol » Honolulu Weekly

Butt patrol

A group of elementary school girls have launched an innovative cigarette-butt-litter reduction and awareness campaign as part of a service learning project. The project encourages smokers to plant their butts in whimsical planters.

Inpsired by Talia Leman

Making a difference one butt at a time.

Talia will be helping us with our Plant Your Butts Here Campaign.

Get Ready to Get Even More Inspired!

Talia will be helping us launch 

Huakailani's "Plant Your Butts Here" Campaign nationally via randomkid.org.

Learn more about Talia's Efforts (click on the Website Links Below):

Talia and Randomkid.org

Because I Can!

Talia Leman Age:14, Waukee, IA

Talia Leman chooses to turn what may seem like obstacles into what she calls “liberators.” For instance, some might say living in a small rural town is an obstacle because of the isolation. But Talia says it became the motivation that led her to the Internet and to email, so she could create a larger community for herself.

In fact, it was through the web that Talia started her organization, where kids, schools and youth groups write to her through the web site. She unifies their fundraising efforts with similar goals and develops other ways to raise money. “My journey began in 2005,” says Talia “after I rallied kids from 4,000 school districts across the USA to unify their fundraising efforts for Katrina/Rita relief. ABC News reported that American school children, rallied by my effort, ended up reporting more than $10 million, ranking in their giving power with the top five U.S. corporations.

“Wanting to harness that kid power for the other disasters the world faces, I started my own non-profit called RandomKid, with the tagline ‘The Power of ANYone.’ In two years, I have worked with kids from all 50 U.S.A. states and 19 countries. I have raised approximately $350,000 and have directly and indirectly worked with close to 10,000 child-benefactors, impacting their lives, and the lives of more than 7,000 beneficiaries globally.”

Talia draws inspiration from role models famous and close to home. She lists Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and anthropologist/gorilla expert Jane Goodall, as people who she believes aimed to inspire others. “Another powerful role model for me is my grandfather Henryk, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland,” Talia says. “When I asked him, ‘Why do you always insist on paying the bill whenever you go out for dinner with other people?’ he answered me very simply, ‘Because I can.’ That is my motto now for everything. Why do what I do? Because I can.

“Nearly every member on my father’s side was killed in the Holocaust. My brother and I are the last ‘Lemans’. Some may think I should be frightened about life, because I know how my family was murdered. But because of that I feel the need to ‘never stand idly by’, as Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said. Because of this, I am liberated to know how important it is to stand up to injustice.”

In school, Talia is soaring academically. She’s in the top one percent in a talented and gifted magnet school, earning the highest GPA possible, a 5.0. She’s been on the principal’s list every year since 2006, and won best in class at the academic science fair in 2007 and 2008. She plans to become a physician, working, she says, wherever medical care is needed most.

One issue that Talia is particularly passionate about is the lack of clean drinking water in many areas. “One billion people do not have access to safe, clean drinking water,” she says, “leading to the death of a child every eight seconds; 25,000 people die each day from hunger; 72 million children are unable to go to school because they live in poor and war torn areas; and the list goes on. There is really no choice except to bring our skills fully to the world to change these awful statistics.”

Huakailani Girls Attend Service Learning Conference

Three upper school students, Mrs. Lukas and I attended a Service Learning Conference at Kapiolani Community College this weekend.

At the conference we showcased our Youth Philanthropy Service Grant project - "Plant Your Butts Here" the conference. the guest speaker at the conference was so impressed with our enthusiasm and creative ideas that she will be helping us launch this campaign nationally!

We also learned about how to be an inquirer and how to research questions and ideas. Did you know there are four kinds of service? Our cigarette campaign hits all of them: direct, indirect, advocacy and research.

Another great thing we learned from the conference was a way to reduce the amount of solid waste add to the landfill with microbes!

Stay tuned!  I am sure we will post more soon when we gets these exciting new ideas implemented.

Way to go butterflies!

Mrs. B

New Planters are Ready for Homes

New planters are ready for homes.

A group of girls visited several businesses on Hekili Street today to add them as "Plant Your Butts Here" partners.   If these businesses all adopt-a-pot,  there will be a "Plant Your Butts Here" planter approximately every 100 feet on Hekili Street.


Stay Tuned!

Butts PSA

Classical ButtUgly

Want to Adopt-A-Pot?

Contact Huakailani School at huakailani@gmail.com 

if you would like to adopt-a-pot.