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To hear Kapilialoha Kidder and Kurt Kidder tell it, they both started out far from typical college-student material — until first the daughter and then the dad found the Lunalilo Scholars program.
They credit the supportive Kapiolani Community College program for turning Kapilialoha into a working college graduate, and Kurt into an ambitious degree candidate heading for a “life change.”
Today they are part of a group of Lunalilo Scholars students and alum mentoring others and crowdfunding a new scholarship endowment — all to help keep the cycle going and bring up even more underrepresented and nontraditional students facing tough challenges.
Back when Kapilialoha was in high school at Kamehameha Schools, “I wasn’t the greatest student,” the now 24-year-old Waimanalo resident recalls. “Basically I just got by doing really well on tests, not caring so much about doing homework. So when it came time to apply for schools, I didn’t have the grades.” And finances for her family were tight, she said.
But the Lunalilo Scholars program, established in 2012, was built exactly for students like Kapilialoha — who have academic potential but not the means to attend college.
The program covered her first year of tuition at KCC, but it didn’t just hand her the money. Lunalilo Scholars gives students in their first year a kick-start by providing academic counseling, instruction in financial literacy and other life skills, outdoor “aina-based” activities and field trips to learn culture and bond with other student cohort members, and a caring safety net of peer mentors and staff.
Kapilialoha started earning A’s and B’s, and gained so much from the program that she became a Lunalilo Scholars peer mentor herself. The program continued to support her as she transferred to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to double- major in marketing and human resources, and earned her bachelor’s degree in 2020. Today she works as an asset management secretary for the Hawaii Community Development Authority.
All the while her father has been watching, inspired.
Kurt had Kapilialoha when he was just 18. He attended three semesters at KCC, but at the time, “I wasn’t ready for college,” he said, and he dropped out to work full time.
But a few years ago Kurt felt “a call to change,” he said. “I felt I wasn’t getting enough out of life, out of my career. I saw that my daughter was doing well in school, and she was being productive and successful. And I thought, now would be a good time to come back to school and reset life.”
At age 39, Kurt reenrolled at KCC in 2019 and, at his daughter’s urging, applied to also become a Lunalilo Scholar. They became the program’s first related pair in which the child enrolled first.
Now the graphics installer is only six credits from earning his associate degree in Hawaiian studies and plans to earn his bachelor’s degree at UH-Manoa. He feels the pull to work next in land conservation and restoration. And like his daughter before him, he is serving as a Lunalilo Scholars peer mentor to other students.
“I had a disconnect from my culture and heritage, so that’s why I felt myself drawn to (Hawaiian studies),” said Kurt, who is part Hawaiian. The Lunalilo Scholars program “is a great opportunity for Native Hawaiians to further their education, to do more and have access to more.”
Of the 600 students who have come through the program over its 10 years, ranging from fresh-faced 17-year- olds to nontraditional students up to age 68, about 5% to 10% have returned to volunteer as peer mentors, said LaVache Scanlan, who has served as its director since its start.
Kapilialoha saw a way to take giving back a step further. Inspired by alum speakers she heard at the Manoa campus, she came to Scanlan with the idea of building a Lunalilo Scholars alum board.
The group set a goal to raise $35,000 for a new permanent scholarship endowment with the UH Foundation. They raised $36,015, making it possible every year in perpetuity to cover KCC tuition for one student in their second year of college.
The Kaneta Leadership Award is named for Lester and Marian Kaneta, philanthropists who have been the main supporting donors since its beginning. “We are all here because of the Kanetas,” Kapilialoha said.
Underserved communities benefit especially from the program, as many students are referred from community organizations and high schools with large populations of underprivileged and initially noncollege- bound students, and Native Hawaiian students are given preference. Among Lunalilo Scholars students, 31% are first-generation college students, compared with 20% of first-year students at UH community colleges.
The program’s individualized wraparound services include mentor and staff support, advising and curriculum, and it can also provide emergency grants, tutoring, laptop loans, career assessments, transportation assistance, and help with financial aid and scholarship applications when needed. The deadline to apply for the next cohort is April 15.
The proof of the program’s impact lies only partly in the numbers.
According to the UH Foundation, 90% of Lunalilo Scholars continue their schooling in the second semester, compared with 75% of first-year students who do not participate in bridge programs in UH community colleges.
Among the Lunalilo Scholars, 24% have earned a credential such as an occupational certification, and 17% have earned a degree such as a bachelor’s, Scanlan said. That’s higher than the 19% and 14%, respectively, for KCC overall.
“Students in the Lunalilo Scholars program are the most determined I’ve seen,” Scanlan said in a statement. “They persevere through challenges we can’t begin to imagine, and Kapiolani Community College couldn’t be prouder of them.”
Alumna Jennifer Wong-Ala, 27, said the benefits of having such a supportive program and “second family” last long after students matriculate out of KCC.
Ten years ago, when Wong-Ala was fresh out of Kailua High School and short on money, going to college didn’t seem in the realm of possibilities. She joined the first cohort of Lunalilo Scholars in 2012.
The support was a “game-changer,” she said. It followed her to UH-Manoa, where she earned her bachelor’s degree, and to Oregon State University, where she earned her master’s degree and is now studying for her doctorate in biological oceanography.
“For a lot of people, she (Scanlan) is like our college mom,” Wong-Ala said. Over the years, “she has listened to me cry more times than I can count, about everything from failing classes to personal problems.”
Wong-Ala, who aspires to be a researcher, creates computer models of the movements of fish and plankton to contribute to the management and conservation of ocean species. She has traveled for internships and conferences in California, Alaska, England, Denmark and Costa Rica.
“I want be a scientist. I’ve been able to see the world,” she said. “Seventeen-year- old Jennifer would have never thought any of this was possible.”
Perpetuating more success stories like Wong-Ala’s is the goal, Kapilialoha said.
“It’s the recycling of hope, faith and love,” she said. “It’s about that cyclical bringing in scholars, seeing the change, and then when they come out of it, they want to go back and help the next batch of scholars.”
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