For 30 years super volunteer Randy Ching has built trails, led hikes, planted trees and championed environmental causes on behalf of the Sierra Club of Hawaii.
His track record of giving of his time and energy is so long and prolific that the club in 2016 named its volunteer of the year award after him.
Ching, born and raised in the Kalihi Valley, has held all the club’s volunteer staff positions and now serves as the service trip program coordinator, working to link the outings program with climate change advocacy.
The retired math teacher from Maryknoll and Waianae high schools also puts his money where his mouth is.
In 2015, for example, he donated $100,000 to the campaign to acquire the Ka Iwi Mauka parcels for conservation. He also donated to the club to help boost its staff from one paid position to seven.
“He’s impoverished himself to save the planet,” says former Honolulu Councilman and former Sierra Club staffer Gary Gill. “He’s Buddha.”
Ching, 62, may be single, but his family is the Sierra Club.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he says. “It’s good being with like-minded individuals who are trying to protect our natural resources, our water, our land, our air and forests, our watershed and oceans.”
Ching was all about hiking, trail building and maintenance when he joined the Sierra Club in the late ’80s, and he continues to devote a great deal of energy to that endeavor.
He has spent thousands of hours over the years helping plan, build, maintain and repair some of Hawaii’s most popular trails, including the Maunawili Demonstration Trail, Kuliouou Ridge Trail,
Hawaii Loa Ridge Trail, Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail and Manoa Falls Trail.
As chairman of the Oahu Group, he fought some high-profile development proposals on Oahu, taking the Castle &Cooke Hawaii’s Koa Ridge and D.R. Horton’s Hoopili projects to lengthy contested case hearings before the Land Use Commission.
The effort cost Castle &Cooke a dozen years of delay and D.R. Horton at least four or five years.
“Even though we ultimately lost, we brought public awareness to two of the best ag lands in Hawaii that were lost to housing. We thought that was a horrendous idea, tremendously short-sided and absolutely crazy,” Ching says.
While Ching is known to be frugal — he owns a car but mostly walks or catches the bus — he’s definitely generous in the causes he supports.
The $100,000 donation in 2015 came as Livable Hawaii Kai Hui had launched a final two-month campaign to raise $500,000 to buy 182 acres of hilly scrub in two parcels just mauka of Kalanianaole Highway, between the Hawaii Kai Golf Course and the Makapuu lookout.
The land was to complete the protection of the island’s Ka Iwi coast, but another buyer was waiting in the wings in case the money didn’t come through.
“The community fought for four decades to secure that area, and we would’ve never gotten this chance again. It was a worthwhile thing to do,” he says.
When Ching helped the Sierra Club hire more staffing, he did so with the aim of helping the nonprofit better sound the alarm about the impacts of climate change.
“I’m terrified by what I see coming in the next decade, the next century. It’s frightening what’s happening in Australia — and by what it will take for us to get off our butts to do something about this situation.”
Ching described his generosity this way:
“My parents were thrifty. They grew up during the Depression. I don’t need stuff. I’m not a typical American. I detest stuff and I don’t like to travel. My material needs are minimal, so whatever I save I give to my favorite causes.”
He applauds the various demonstrations that sprung out of the ongoing protest over the planned Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea.
“People have done all they can through legitimate options, but they’re exhausted. They’ve seen zero results from all their efforts. If (decision-makers) totally disregard what happens at public forums, what else is left? I can’t say I blame them,” he says.
“When we lost Hoopili and Koa Ridge, I wasn’t going to tie myself to a gate. It wasn’t a reasonable response then. But if Koa Ridge had happened today, I would definitely consider chaining myself to a gate.”
