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Honolulu Lodge 616 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks has contributed $118,600 raised by its members to programs that treat children with disabilities. Arthur "Bud" Lush, president of Lodge 616, presented the donation in May at the annual Elks Convention in Anaheim, Calif.
The donation from the Honolulu lodge was the largest of all the lodges in California and Hawaii.
Since 1950 the 86,000 Elks members in California and Hawaii have given more than $103 million to the California-Hawaii Elks Major Project Inc., which administers the nonprofit charitable corporation. In Hawaii the money is used to support three speech therapists who provide services to children at no cost.
Fundraising toward helping children with disabilities is just one of the philanthropic projects undertaken by the Elks to contribute to the community.
Others grants and donations:
» Ameriprise Financial employees in Honolulu collected more than 600 pounds of canned food for Hawaii Foodbank in a company food drive May 18. It was part of a companywide effort that has provided more than 23 million meals and 80,000 hours of volunteer labor for hunger relief efforts in the U.S., the company said.
» On June 18, Maui Hotel & Lodging Association purchased an all-terrain vehicle from Cycle City Maui and presented it to the Maui Police Department, Kihei District. The ATV will be used to patrol the shoreline from Makena to Maalaea.
"Maui Hotel & Lodging Association is pleased to provide this ATV to the Maui Police Department," Lisa Paulson, executive director of MHLA, said in a news release. "Giving back to the community is an integral part of our organization and we hope to make a difference with this donation to our police force who works tirelessly to protect our island and its residents."
The Maui Hotel & Lodging Association is a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 to advocate for the visitor industry.
» Saint Louis School was recently awarded an engineering and robotics program grant to create the first fully equipped facility of its kind among Hawaii’s Catholic schools.
The E.L. Wiegand Foundation in Reno, Nev., awarded a grant in the amount of $119,927.84 to equip the E.L. Wiegand Engineering and Robotics Program.
The school’s growth in STEM integration and increasing global outreach will help define its direction in the 21st century, president Walter S. Kirimitsu said in a news release.
"Engineering has become a career of choice among our students, and we’ve become the only private school in the nation to have a civil engineering club sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers," Kirimitsu said.
He added, "We anticipate that with the start of the new school year in August, the newly equipped robotics and engineering educational laboratory will expand student creativity and train future leaders for global careers in STEM-related fields. We are quite excited to add this expanded program to our curriculum thanks to this magnificent grant. It will clearly make a difference for the robotics program here at Saint Louis."
According to the news release, the E.L. Wiegand grant will allow students in grades six to 12 to take part in an age-appropriate level of robotics or engineering activities and studies using the most current technology and industry-grade equipment.
» The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded David Karl and Edward DeLong, both University of Hawaii at Manoa professors in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, individual grants totaling $4.2 million.
The awards are part of the Moore Foundation’s national Marine Microbiology Initiative, which awarded 16 scientists from 14 different institutions a total of up to $35 million over five years to pursue pioneering research in the field of marine microbial ecology, according to a news release from the university.
With the funding, researchers will be able to explore how microscopic organisms at the base of the ocean’s food webs interact with one another and their environment.
"These funds will support a team of students, post-docs and technicians to continue our ongoing efforts to understand the complex nature of life in the ocean," Karl said. "Our research will be conducted at sea, where the marine microbes live."
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