Na Pua No‘eau, the Center for Gifted and Talented Native Hawaiian Children, is calling on all of its former students to come and be recognized at this year’s 22nd Annual Hawaiian Family AfFair. The free public event will be held on the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday. This year’s theme is “E Ola Koa: Living long and strong like a koa tree in the forest.”
Na Pua No‘eau, the Center for Gifted and Talented Native Hawaiian Children, is calling on all of its former students to come and be recognized at this year’s 22nd Annual Hawaiian Family AfFair. The free public event will be held on the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday. This year’s theme is “E Ola Koa: Living long and strong like a koa tree in the forest.”
Activities include various exhibit booths, free health screenings, a keiki fitness center, arts and crafts booths, make-and-take workshops, entertainment, food booths and more.
More than 16,000 Native Hawaiian children from across the state and around the globe have participated in a Na Pua No‘eau activity since its first event was held in 1990. The center provides educational enrichment that guides students to learn through the Hawaiian culture.
“The best way to describe the program’s impact on students is that the students create a healthy life and lifestyle for themselves, their family and their community,” said Executive Director David Sing. “The center helps them define and understand themselves as Hawaiians and to build a future that acknowledges and embraces who they are in the evolving world.”
Sing said the center wants to celebrate the lives its alumni have made for themselves, their families and community. Approximately 18-percent of the native Hawaiian students currently attending UH-Hilo and 17 percent attending Hawaii Community College are products of the Na Pua No‘eau pipeline.
For more information, call 974-7678.