Island Youth

Keiki Clean Up Beaches at the Wharf, Canoe Club

Friday, July 26th, 2024

A three-prong partnership brought together several dozens of keiki to a beach cleanup at Kaunakakai Wharf and at the Molokai Canoe Club Friday morning, gathering about 50 pounds of trash and 100 pounds of invasive red mangrove seedlings.
“This is our second year hosting the beach cleanup with Molokai Holokai,” said Sonja Angst, marketing communications manager at the nonprofit organization Sust‘āinable Molokai.
Angst said about 75 children from Maui County’s Summer PALS program, plus a handful of other keiki from the community showed up at the wharf for the cleanup. The children filled three large bags – two filled with snapped mangrove seedlings and another filled with trash picked up on the shoreline.…

Celebrating the Youth Cadets

Friday, July 12th, 2024

Twelve Molokai young adults started their summers a little differently: early mornings, endless push-ups, miles of running, ocean rescue training and more. As part of the third class of the Maui Police Dept.’s Youth Cadet Leadership Program, these Molokai high schoolers were honored on Friday, June 28 for completing the challenging course.

The four-week program was led by Molokai police officers. From 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every day, the cadets were put through various physical and mental challenges, focusing on “mind over matter,” explained one of the program organizers, Officer Lani Caparida.

At Friday’s graduation ceremony, Caparida explained that he was proud of how the Molokai cadets “just put their heads down and didn’t quit” during the program.…

Young Paniolo on to Nationals

Friday, June 28th, 2024

Cousins Bailey Sproat and Buzzy Sproat-Augustiro, both Molokai High School juniors, qualified last weekend for the National High School Rodeo Finals after a strong performance at the state finals. The duo placed third in the team roping event, earning a spot in the upcoming national tournament.

Even though Bailey is a defending champion in the event, she and Buzzy weren’t certain they would qualify, having not been able to compete in several rodeos leading up to the state finals.

“My teammate Buzzy and I missed our first two rodeos at the start of the season, and we were still able to place third in the state,” shared Bailey in a social media post.…

Kicking Off Summer

Wednesday, June 5th, 2024

Kaunakakai Elementary School students celebrated the end of the school year in spectacular fashion. Firefighters from the Kaunakakai station brought a tanker and hoses to the last day of school on Thursday, May 30 to drench the enthusiastic kids, as per tradition.…