Lee Cataluna: Hale Kipa proceeding with 2007 dream center

Twelve years ago the leaders of a long- established Hawaii agency that helps at-risk kids had a dream of building their own service center and emergency shelter for kids with nowhere else to go.

Hale Kipa, which serves more than 2,000 at-risk Hawaii youth and their families each year, raised the money to purchase 4.26 acres of land along Old Fort Weaver Road in 2007, but then the recession hit, funding dried up and the dream was put on hold. Temporarily.

CEO Punky Pletan- Cross, a man who exudes the energetic spark of his name, worked with the agency’s volunteer board of directors to refine their vision for the facility, meticulously writing a business plan that looked at not only designing the center, but also how to run it once it’s built. When the economy picked up, Hale Kipa was ready.

“After the recession there seemed to be a pent-up desire to help people who have suffered,” Pletan-Cross said. “We seemed to hit this sweet spot where we were out raising money when people were willing to hear us.”

Still, raising money for a project to help troubled kids isn’t easy. It’s not a trending or quick-fix kind of social issue; success stories are often kept private; and positive change happens so gradually.

But on Tuesday the nonprofit will finally celebrate the groundbreaking.

The $11.6 million facility will include two shelters with eight beds each — one for boys, one for girls — and a service center with office space for staff that currently works out of rented offices in Honolulu and Waipahu. The Hale Kipa headquarters is targeted to open in September on a plot of land between Waipahu and Kapolei that has been fallow for decades, unused except for illegal dumping.

In a sense, the building project reflects the philosophy of the agency, which, since its beginning in 1970, has always said it never gives up on a kid. Pletan-Cross liberally sprinkles his conversation with this mantra: Perseverance, persistence, patience. This is Hale Kipa’s approach with people as well as with big projects.

“There’s always hope,” Pletan- Cross said. “Our goal with every youth is sparking some belief in themselves or hope for a future they can create for themselves.”

Pletan-Cross has been with Hale Kipa for 21 years. When he talks about the work it does, he describes forming relationships with troubled youth and their families that endure anything, from school troubles to trauma to job training and all the messy stumbles along the way.

“I tell my staff that my definition of stability is staying on top of a moving ball on uneven ground. Stability requires agility and flexibility,” he said.

There will be about 60 people in attendance at the groundbreaking, including Alexander &Baldwin CEO Chris Benjamin, who headed the capital drive and stuck with the project for the past 12 years. The scrub brush has been cleared from the land, and construction is ready, finally, to begin. Perseverance, persistence and patience paid off.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.