Waimea Valley Volunteer Day & Shoe Drive Wrap Up

On our Waimea day, Rosie was the first to arrive and spent 30 minutes wandering about and seeing peacocks walking all over like they owned the place and roosting in crazy high trees. The rest of HIC then started to arrive and Hoku, our volunteer organizer, came out to greet us. We didn’t find out till later in the day that it was actually supposed to be his day off, but he hooked us up anyway and came in so we could volunteer… just off a vacation no less!

So from the main entry Hoku told us we’d be heading back in to the valley to clear debris from one area that had recently been flooded. We started it off with a Hawaiian prayer and he gave us some insider knowledge on the area and about the cool birds that live there (one was so endangered there are only 300 left and these birds were just flying around… crazy!)

We stopped to pick up tools and gloves then walked back to the work area. He gave us instructions to pick up debris, garbage, leaves, anything covering the base of the plants. The goal was to keep the roots from being crowded and harming the plants (paraphrasing here).

Once we started, we scattered and created 4 or 5 piles where we dragged our bounty to be picked up later by a truck. It was nice working in an area that wasn’t in the public path (we didn’t realize this was such a popular tourist spot there were lots of buses and people coming through)

After about 1.5 hours we called it a day and Hoku took us on a short tour and walked us up to the waterfall where we were free to wander the grounds for as long as we wished. When we got the waterfall many brave souls jumped right in to the freezing iceberg water.

On another note, we’ve wrapped up the shoe drive. Thanks everyone for participating! We kept a good amount of shoes out of the landfill that can now be recycled to make new playground surfaces.

Next up, not sure yet, anyone have any ideas they’d like to do for another drive? Coin jar? Food drive? Blood donation?