A Hawaii teenager who spearheaded a project to help earthquake victims in Japan and another who helped found a nonprofit organization to help children have been named Prudential Spirit of Community Award winners.
Candonino Agusen, 16, of Kailua-Kona and Jackson Button, 13, of Waialua were named Hawaii’s top two Prudential youth volunteers for 2012.
Agusen, a junior at Kealakehe High School and president of the Interact service club, helped raise more than $64,000 to buy temporary housing kits for displaced quake victims. Jackson, an eighth-grader at Hawaii Technology Academy, co-founded a nonprofit organization with his sisters that raised nearly $100,000 for projects aiding children in Africa, Mexico and the United States.
Both will receive $1,000 and represent Hawaii in Washington, D.C., where they will be recognized along with other state winners.
Two other students — Scott Fetz, 16, of Kailua-Kona, a sophomore at Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Waimea; and Jessica Sonson, 17, of Ewa Beach and a senior at Lanakila Baptist High School — were recognized as Hawaii finalists.
Four Hawaii island students earned trips to Washington, D.C., to be honored for being middle-school winners in a national science fair.
The Kohala Middle School students saw no local ways to properly dispose of batteries and predicted that if they gave people the ability to recycle batteries, they could collect 60,000 batteries in 60 days.
Using community events and social media, the students met their goal and became winners in the "Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge."
Competition organizers say Genevieve Boyle, Rico Bowman, Mina Apostadiro and Isabel Steinhoff were honored at the White House Tuesday.
