 Rossick. I'm your host for this program, Hawaii's Volunteer Champions, in which we talk to a few of the many exemplary volunteers in Hawaii. And basically, we want to find out what they do and why they do it, why do people give up probably their two most precious resources, their time and their effort to help some cause or some organization. And we also want to find out about the organization. So today, we're going to visit with folks from the Waikiki Aquarium and our guests are Chris Patton, who is a volunteer, and Jessica Parros, who is the volunteer coordinator, which coordinating volunteers is more difficult than you probably realize. So we'll just stump right in. Chris, welcome to the program. Tell me what you do at the Waikiki Aquarium. Tell me why you do it. Hey, well, I volunteer in two programs. One is the, which I work at least once a week, sometimes two times a week. And that is showing folks, especially children, the fish that are in our outside exhibit, which is edge of the reef. And we have a fantastic idea that I think came from the volunteer office is when the pandemic came and we were shut down for so long, we when we came back, we didn't have the touch pool anymore. And we used to let the kids touch the hermit crabs and the sea urchins. And that was a really fun part of that job. And so instead couldn't go back to that. And we still haven't come back to that. We have a scavenger hunt and we have a laminated two sided eight fish. They can find those fish, they get it Hawaii sticker, which I have someone here. And, and so that's really fun. The other job I do, which is during the school year is the docent program, which is with the elements folks and they from kindergarten through fifth grade. And we invite teachers to sign up. And they will bring their kids. So there's usually a classroom anywhere from 24 to 30 kids. And they have then we are sure they have enough chaperones and are a coordinator of that Dean Spencer, age appropriate lecture, model lecture, it's a fun interact time. And that chain that changes which with each year. So the kindergarten through fifth grade. And then for the last 45 minutes, we as docents, and there's usually five or six of us, take to six children and chaperone around the aquarium exhibits. And we have been the training is very thorough. And we get to tell them things about it. We answer their questions and interact that way. So those are my two jobs. Where I got into this, because after I retired, I was looking for something that would involve my I taught biology in high school for 10 years. And then, then I went to law school and was an attorney for 26 years. But anyway, I wanted to get back to my biology background. And I looked it up on the web. And there was the, you know, do you want to volunteer at the aquarium? So I immediately went to that source because I thought this would be perfect. And it really has been I've been I've started working in 2019. And, you know, through 20 and when we closed for a little while, and then came back immediately when we opened again. Wow, that's that's impressive. I didn't know we had lawyers out there at the end to the reach. So, but that's great. So you've been a volunteer at the aquarium for about four years, all. Yeah, with that one. Yeah, well, right, everybody, we sort of lost that time. We don't know where the Chesa tell us I Chris doesn't seem too shy. But I'm guessing she hasn't really told us the whole story of how much she helps the aquarium. Well, tell us a little more about how valuable somebody like that is. Absolutely. So Chris, like she said, she's an educator volunteer at edge of the reef, and also a docent volunteer. So while she's an educator at edge of the reef, she's really able to make that connection with so many of our visitors and educate them. You know, a lot of times people are coming from all over, and they're also all ages, right? So a lot of times it's the first time people are seeing a lot of these animals. Maybe it's the first time they saw a little, we can teach them more about know Hawaii, more about our reefs, the roles on the reefs and the importance of all these animals. So she's able to make that connection. And hopefully after the visitors come, they can take this what they've learned outside of the aquarium, right? And hopefully that makes an impact on how they interact with our ocean and all of the animals that we have. Hopefully they learn that coral is an animal, not the step on it, right? When they're out on the reef. And as a docent, you know, we get so many school groups that come in. And like she said, we have kindergarten up until fifth grade. And being able to actually tour around these groups, you know, it takes quite a bit of training and quite a bit of knowledge. So Chris has put in so much time and effort to learn more about all of our exhibits and actually teach this to so many of our kiki on the island, which is so important, right? So and still an ethic of conservation and the importance of all these animals at a young age. It's really, really impressive. And we're so thankful for Chris, because like she said, she volunteers into really important, you know, of course, all of our volunteers are important. Some are more important than others. I think that's for sure. But she has always been an amazing volunteer and also just a great positive energy and bringing that to all of the kiki you come in and the visitors. It's really, really so thank you Chris for having me. Thank you. That's great. How many volunteers are to give a given moment about how many volunteers does the aquarium have? All together we have around 200 volunteers. But this is spread up in like all of our different programs. And we have different volunteer opportunities and almost all of our departments. So on a given day, I would say we would have, I would say maybe around 10 volunteers. If it's a dosing day, of course, we have more. But yeah. Okay. Chris, how many hours a week would you say you put into the aquarium on average? On average, it's probably, well, it's different during the summer. In the summer, four hours edge of the reef. And then during the school year, that program is four hours a week itself. And then I also do the edge of the reef. So that's six hours. So about six hours during the school year. So again, I have to ask this question. You are giving up a very precious resource, the time, and you're putting a lot of effort and work into it. What are you getting out of this? Why would you, we do this kind of stuff? Oh my gosh. Well, I love tea. I did that for many years. And I love kids. I have two granddaughters, ages six and three. And I love teaching them all about nature and biology. And my six-year-old who's been to the aquarium about four times, they live on the mainland, but come over to visit. She loves animals herself. So it's been so fun to do that with my grandchildren. So getting to do it with elementary school kids and everyone who comes by it to the reef is just an extension of that. That I love to impart that kind of feeling of that nature's important, that conservation's important. And as Chesa said, especially with our Monxio, who had to go, when the pandemic came, he had to be shipped back over to a lab in Santa Cruz, which is actually where I'm from. And he hasn't come back yet. But when he was here, and even though he's not here, I take a time with the docent program and the edge of the reef to educate parents and the kids about the importance of our Hawaiian Monxios, when there are so few of them. And this is the only place they are in the whole world. And many people don't know that. And so it's very satisfying to see them ask questions, and then hopefully they'll go home, tell their parents, and then they'll talk about it in school. And they will have the appreciation of nature, not only the marine world, but the whole world of nature and preserving it. All right. Chesa, I've got to ask you since we got into the Monxio question. When is he coming back? Do not have a date. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you. But I don't know myself. I know they are working on fixing up his exhibit for when he comes back. But I know we all do. Well, and then, you know, it's one of the primary attractions for visitors of the aquarium, very frankly. And people show up. And frankly, I've been a volunteer there. In the gift shop more recently. And people are always asking. Some people make a trip, especially just to see the Monxio. And so, yeah, I don't think I have to remind you how important he is to people. But we'll look forward to him getting back into the swig of things there. So Chris, how did you, you had a background in biology, obviously, but it was a few years ago. How did you prep, you know, the thing that terrifies me is that some little six-year-old is going to would ask me a question and I would have no idea what the answer was. So how did you prep to become a edge of the reef and a docent? Well, one, nobody knows everything. And so we often say, I don't know, either let's look it up right then. Sometimes I always have my phone with me. I always bring the books with me to edge of the reef. So often we can look things up or tell them go home, look it up, or talk with it. Your teachers and your fellow students, when you get back, find out for me. And if you come back, let me know. So you just, nobody knows everything. Although, some of our people that teach us know we have a very intensive, not intense, hard, but intensive training program for the docent is more involved. And the edge of the reef is also there have night classes. They are, I think, had one last night for volunteers and Mary and Dean are excellent teachers. So we have in person learning experiences at the aquarium. We then have a shadowing program that new volunteers will shadow a senior volunteer. And so you get to see how we do it and what we do. But also we get big binder of written materials. And I still, I got that four years ago, I still reference it when I go back, I check it, you know, up. And then there's an online course also that you can always go back to. And it's just an online goes through all the fish and everything. So it's very intensive in that. I mean, I had my own back, like you say, a long time ago, and it wasn't in marine biology. But that was one of my section. But this is much more complicated relationships. So I've learned so much even at this age, despite the materials that were given by the aquarium, so that we feel comfortable in answering questions and always say, I don't know. And are, you know, let's find out. But I can tell you we're a high school teacher because the standard high school teacher response when to a question is go look it up. So I can tell you have that background. So which is terrific. And just the opportunity to learn new things is one of the things that I find, you know, interesting and about volunteering. I just said I volunteer, I have a volunteer for about a year and a half in the gift shop, which unlike the edge of the reef, it's air conditioned. So I'm very happy in there when I'm working in there. And, you know, seeing kids coming in and getting excited about nice, nice if they can pick up a book, but mostly it's plus stories. And but there's still you there's still learning learning opportunities. So just so let's talk a little bit more about the volunteer program. You know, the people don't often realize I think that the Karen feeding the Karen and, and, you know, help for volunteers is so important and frankly, very difficult. I think you guys put in a lot of time and energy. Tell us a little bit about what you do for the volunteers in appreciation for what they do. Sure. Well, of course, we want to show appreciation to all of our volunteers and I try to make it a point to make our volunteer program a whole program, right? Not just a you come in, you volunteer and you leave. We try to make it a whole program where all of our volunteers eventually get to meet all of our other volunteers in different programs. Of course, we provide the best snacks, just saying Karen feeding Karen feeding. Yeah, always have good snacks in the office and coffee and tea forks. But other than that, on the day to day of need, you know, that's my favorite part of this job is also just talking with our volunteers, seeing how they're doing and seeing them every time when they come in every week. But in addition to that, we do have different ways of how we show appreciations to our volunteers. We do have two appreciation events every year. So usually in the holiday time around December, we'll have our holiday appreciation. This one is more of a relaxed appreciation. I will say, you know, we do have a little costume contest where people can come in wearing like ugly sweaters. I don't know if you guys remember two of my favorite ones. Remember Ben came as the Grinch one year. I think what's her name? Anna, she came in as Mrs. Claus. I of course have my festive attire for holiday time as well. But this one, we provide dinner and all of the volunteers, they also can bring up plus one. So I get to finally meet spouses and kids and all the people I've been hearing about for the past year, which is always great. And then all the volunteers can also bring cookies and desserts, which is fun. We have a couple of games out on the lawn, just as like a nice social time for the volunteers. That's in holiday time. And then in April, or April, sometimes March, sometimes May, basically our spring appreciation. We have this, this one's more of a little bit of a fancier appreciation. We usually have it at one of the hotels in town. We do have a pinning ceremony. So if you reach a certain amount of years of service, you do get recognized in front of all of the other volunteers coming to the appreciation event. So if you hit three, five, seven and 10, and then going forward those ones as well, you do get a separate years of appreciation. It's fun because people start to collect them over the years that they've been volunteering. I know some people like to wear the lanyards or wearing all their pins and showing how many years they've been volunteering for. You also get to meet some of the volunteers who've been here for, you know, 30 plus years and have been doing it for as long as they've been on island for. Yeah, that's one of the things that amazed me. I was fortunate to attend one of those lovely, a lovely event, a lovely lunch at a very nice hotel. It was really nice. But the thing that amazed me was there were people there who had been, have stuck with the aquarium for years and years. There was the longest person in your memory or in your experience, the longest volunteer. In the past, I think you hit up to like 42 years. And right now, I can't remember, I know it's, I know the person. I think they hit, I want to say almost 40. This person who's a volunteer at Edge of the Reef, she right now does gift shop as well. She's still coming in. I'm going to see her next week. Great. Perfect. Chris, do you kind of recruit among your friends? Do you try to get other people to become volunteers or is this just kind of something that you do for yourself? Well, I definitely talk about it a lot. So actually, I learned that friend of ours on the island, who had a peer mother who is in her 90s, has a friend who was in her late 80s, also volunteered as a docent. So I got to connect with her and we talk about it. I've tried with other people and say, and I certainly people who come by the reef and that are in the docent program and that if the kids or the parents are there for chaperoning and at the edge of the reef. And so I often, especially if the kids are excited, I say, Hey, when you go up, you can volunteer here, you can get a job here, but you cool. And so I do it more than that. More like that. I have talked about it to my friends. I don't go out and actually say, well, I say if you need to see what something to do, I'll do this. So yeah. And you've been doing this for, for some years now and you've been involved with a couple of different programs. Is there something you would change? Is there something you think could be improved? I'm sure Chester wouldn't mind if you know if the treats aren't really up to your stand. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to mention when she said coffee and tea and treats and snacks. And Jessica brings those in, but they are amazing. We get cookies and candy and other more, sometimes more healthful things, but it's always great to take a little break or when you're done, especially like you say, Peter, edge of the reef can be hot. And you'll always have to have your water bottle and come into the air conditioned volunteer center is very nice. You just want it and appreciate it so much when you go in there. Chester always has a smile for you. We, she and I know each other's nieces and nephews and she knows my grandchildren. We share pictures and it's really a wonderful place to work. And especially in the docent program, Dean assigns to one day a week. So you get to and they're the same people. And so there's about who is Dean now? He's the, I don't know, we call him coordinator of the school support. And so you get to know those people and you become friends with them and it's just been wonderful. All right. So you don't have, you don't have any complaints you want to share with us. Any complaints. I love it. I love it. It is. It's what, in my experience, it's one of the best programs on in Hawaii in terms of the care and feeding of the volunteers, the opportunities that are presented. The people are fantastic. Chessa, Matt who runs the gift shop of the people I've had the most direct contact with lately. Chessa tell us, so we know that you can do docent. We know you can do edge of the wreaths. You know, you can work in the gift shop. Are there other classes of opportunities that you would mention? Yeah, we also have our variant activators. I know it's a funny name, but that basically is our craft table. So if you're more of like a crafty person and like doing that with the different kids, we've got an opportunity for you. We also do have volunteers that help us in our live exhibits department. These are the volunteers that work behind the scenes and help take care of the exhibits. So you could actually be in the back and helping with the care and feeding of the marine animals. Is that right? Yep, you can. This one I will say is definitely one of the most highly sought after opportunities. You do also have to have a previous experience with fish and vertebrate, but we do definitely always appreciate our live exhibits volunteers. They help us run all of our different exhibits and help clean these ones. Definitely a hard job. So we appreciate those volunteers. The wait list for this volunteer opportunity is typically around a year. So you do have quite a bit of people looking to help back there. So that one's always a good opportunity. And then we do have special events. These special events, now you do have to be in another program to also do special events, but we have done some special events throughout the year, like our summer concert series. It's a Mackay, which is our Earth Day, and just a lot of day events as well. And then these are all typically like recurring volunteers, like once a week, or a couple of times a month. But we do also have our beach cleanup program. I was going to ask you about that. Not all the activities are right inside the aquarium. You guys go out and how do you pick, how do you decide where you're going to clean up? Well, it does change every time you do it. So the majority of our beach cleanups happen between the months of February up until September. We have around six to eight cleanups every year. So this is actually the one volunteer opportunity that you don't have to be like a recurring weekly volunteer. This one is open to the public. You can also be under 18, which our normal volunteer program, you have to be 18 and older. If you're under 18, of course, you just have to be with an adult fissure. And you guys go out, what happens? You, somebody picks a beach, a YTT, or somewhere else, and you guys go out and clean it up. Is that right? Yep. So a lot of times we'll do them at the aquarium and we'll clean up the beaches and parks surrounding the aquarium. So YTT, even though we, you know, had a bunch of trash cans lying around, we do have quite a bit of trash on our beaches and parks. If you look around, it gets there with, especially on a windy days, there's quite a bit, maybe extra picnics or parties on the beach. There's a lot of trash there. So we'll do them sometimes around the aquarium, but we also do go to other beaches. Our last one we did go to Sherwood Beach, did a lot of microplastics sifting and the volunteers were able to do microplastics and also clean up just the park. So a lot of the bigger debris as well. Before that, we also went to Alamoana Beach Park. That one as well was very filled with trash. Yeah. Well, they're very heavily used. And as you say, sometimes, even when you put stuff into the bins, the wind will take them out again. It's, you know, not entirely just people being slops. The fact is that the winds and the weather will spread some of the stuff around. These are very heavily used Waikiki, of course. Alamoana Beach Park is probably the heaviest used, most heavily used beach because it's everybody in Makiki at all that area to get down there. So have you ever, Chris, have you gone on any of these? Yeah, I have not. We, during a lot of them that are in, that she said, it's Copy Alamoana Park and the beaches around the aquarium, they're often usually also going on like our birthday celebrations every year. So I'm usually working inside the aquarium, but you would have not. I'm down there. I'll forgive you for not going on the beach. So that's, that's great. Jessica, how does somebody become a volunteer? They can apply online. So they'll head to our website, WaikikiAparium.org, and they'll go on the volunteer page, and they can actually see all of the different volunteer opportunities that we have, the different requirements as well. And they apply online after they submit their documents with it, which is just a background check and TV clearance, and especially they have to be over 18. Then we'll set up a meeting greet where me and you will actually go and tour around the aquarium, talk a bit more about our volunteer program, and then whichever volunteer program or programs that they choose, I'll explain more for the next steps for that. All right. So start online and kind of move up from there. Don't just show up one day, start by going to the website and seeing, getting the basic information and then signing up. Okay. Thank you. We're coming to the end of our half hour. It always flies by for me. Chris, any last words that you want to share with people? Well, I basically want to say that if you're looking for a very satisfying, very important volunteer time that you want to experience, do it. Just go in, make your application, meet Chesa, and I'm sure you'll love it. All right. Thank you. Chesa, any last words? We've got about a half a minute here. Nothing but thank you both for being amazing volunteers and have your interest in volunteering. It doesn't hurt to submit an application just to learn more. All right. Thank you so much, both of you. Chris and Chesa from the White Key Aquarium, Chris Padna volunteer, Chesa Caparos, who is an exemplary volunteer coordinator. Thank you very much for being here. And we're always looking for new organizations or new volunteers. So if you're watching and you have a suggestion, send it to Hawaii's Volunteered Champions at gmail.com. And we're going to leave you with a thought about volunteering, as we always do at the end of these shows. Just a moment to reflect on the value, the incredible value. So many organizations would come grinding to a halt if it were not for the volunteers who give their most valuable resources to support them. So thank you so much. We'll be back in a couple of weeks. And thank you to my two regular viewers and anybody else who wondered in. Thank you to Chesa and Chris and Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.