 Aloha and welcome to Rotary in Hawaii, people of action. Rotary came to Hawaii more than 100 years ago, but that doesn't mean that we're an old organization. We have Rotarians in 52 organizations or clubs in the state of Hawaii that are continually innovating service and events throughout the state. And we're here today with the president of the Rotary Club of Waikiki, Steven Morgan. Good morning, Steven. How are you today? Good morning, Wayne. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. I think I'd first like to hear a little bit about you and what you do in life, and how you came to be a Rotarian in the Rotary Club of Waikiki. Oh, well, let's see. It all started when I was a little kid. I'm just kidding. I was born and raised on Oahu. Went to school here. I graduated from McKinley High School, then moved to California for a little while, and did different jobs here and there. And then I started working for this interior designer in the mainland and doing fancy faux finishes and big houses everywhere. And then one year, I came back to a visit, and I noticed that there wasn't any of the houses that had any of this. So I came back and started my business as a faux finish painter. And then my mother started the Rotary Club of Kahala Sunrise. So I've been in and out of Rotary throughout my life. But I never really understood what Rotary was until I got involved with it. So I became the designated volunteer for the Rotary Club of Kahala Sunrise and helping out with all of their community service projects. And then eventually became a member of that club. And then throughout the years, became the community service director through that club and started directing all of the community service projects that they did. And then eventually moved to the Rotary Club of Waikiki. I've been with the Rotary Club of Waikiki now for, I think, six years. Wow. So you've had a lot of experience in Rotary from the time that you were a young man all the way until now. Tell me about some of your experiences in the Rotary Club of Waikiki or even Kahala Sunrise, for that matter, because we do have a lot of organizations within the state. It's just giving back to the community. I never really understood what Rotary was growing up. It's always thinking about yourself and then not thinking about others. But then once you get involved and you start doing the projects and you realize that you get much more by giving back than from taking from community. That's cool. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about the Rotary Club of Waikiki. When was the Rotary Club of Waikiki founded? Rotary Club of Waikiki was founded in 1939. And this year, we're actually turning 80. In June, we will have our 80th anniversary party. And some of your signature projects, some of the signature things that you do. And maybe you can just go through a quick list of some of the items, and then we'll go back and talk about them individually. Let's see. To date, we've done 24 community service projects this year. We do a lot of literacy projects. We do a lot of annual projects that we do. Starting off the year, we do a annual school supply drive where we collect school supplies and money. And we use that money to purchase backpacks where we fill the backpacks with the school supplies that we collect. And those get donated to the homeless shelters and all their homeless outreach services to get to the kids the supplies that they need. And then also, we do a lot of other literacy projects. We do a Books for Kids project where we donate hardcover books to the entire schools. I think this year we've done six schools so far where we get in the entire school hardcover books. Also, we have a Rotary Readers program. Rotary Readers program. Yeah, every month, we have a group of our Rotarians that go to Waikiki Elementary School and read to the kindergartners. You know, it's a well-known fact that when you read to children, especially when they're very young in kindergarten and that kind of stuff, by the time they're in third or fourth grade, if you read to them on a regular basis, their vocabulary increases by 400%. So that's an amazing what you're doing with those. What else are you doing? Let's see. Also, we do a dictionary project. We've really stepped up our number of schools for the dictionary project. This year, we've done nine different schools that have given over 800 dictionaries to their graders. Well, what's the purpose of giving a dictionary to kids? Dictionaries, it increases their vocabulary. You know, it not only teaches them the words, but the dictionary itself is a wealth of knowledge. There's not only the definitions of words, they can look up many other different things that are in that particular book. And giving dictionaries to the third graders is such a perfect age because they're at the age to where they're just glued to everything that you say and they just want to learn, they want to engage you and they just get really excited about having their own personal book that they've never owned their own personal book before. That's a great point. Many children here in the state have never owned a book of their own and I think we've experienced that where children come up to you and say how exciting it is to have their very first book. Very cool. What else have you been doing? Let's see, actually, this month, next week, we have an annual garage sale that we do. I believe this is gonna be our ninth year doing this annual garage sale. It's going to be for the Waikiki Elementary School. So we collect all of the items, not only from our Rotary Club, but people that we know, people in the community. And then all of the proceeds go directly to the Waikiki Elementary School, which they use for their programs for kids that can't afford to go on field trips or kids that can't afford lunches, that sort of thing. Sounds like you've adopted Waikiki Elementary School. Do you have a special relationship with them? Yes, we have done a lot of things for the Waikiki Elementary School and I think we have kind of adopted that school and they love us there. I bet, I bet, absolutely. So what other items have you done with Waikiki Elementary? Are there any service projects that you've done there? I've heard some things about Waikiki Elementary and their work with aquaponics and gardening and that kind of stuff. Are you involved in that as well? Well, we did recently do a tree planting event there. We planted, I believe, one tree for every Rotarian that we had in our club. Wow. And also, at the same time, we did a painting project where we repainted all of the poles that get scuffed up. Yeah, yeah, right. There's a lot of maintenance work that needs to be done so. You've saved them an enormous amount of money as well. Anything else as far as youth service that you'd like to share with our viewers? Youth service, well, we do have a special relationship with one of our sister clubs in Japan where we send one of the students from Waipahu High School over to Japan for a month and then also in return, we get one of the students from their schools for a month. Sister clubs. I'm aware of the Sister Club program within Rotary and many of our clubs do have sister clubs. Talk about your sister clubs and Waikiki Rotary and how that benefits our community. Well, we actually have a lot of sister clubs. We have six sister clubs in Japan, two sister clubs in Taiwan and one in Thailand. And sister clubs, they're a really great relationship. We get to know other members of clubs that are outside of our district and we get to collaborate with them. So do you like have Rotarians from your sister clubs come and visit your club? And do you send Rotarians there in an effort to create greater understanding between Rotary clubs and between our communities? Yes. Is that kind of the idea? Yes, we do actually have actually a big delegation from our sister clubs coming to our annual fundraiser that we do. So with your sister clubs in Taiwan or in Japan, have you done other service projects with them or is it more of a friendship relationship? Right now, it is actually mostly a friendship relationship but we have actually done, two years ago, we did a global grant project through the District 5000 where we went to Taiwan and helped out the rural indigenous community in southern Taiwan and one of our sister clubs Kaohsiung Central came down and helped us out with that. So you went on that service project to Yengon. I did. Tell us a little about your experience, your travel. It's another great thing about Rotary is the opportunity to travel and provide service to other parts of the world in rural communities. It's a really great eye-opening experience. I've never gotten to experience things like that and it really changes you, the way you see life and the way you look at the world. So the Yengon project was a literacy project, water and sanitation. I mean, there's so many things that we do in Rotary in terms of our six areas of focus and the services that we provide. What was the specifics about the project that you went on? The project I went on was a two-part project. The first part was we went to Myanmar and helped out the monastery schools, the monastic schools, part of a teacher exchange program to send teachers to the monastery schools and to teach them English and to have them teach their children and how to retain knowledge and to go forward. And also while we were there, we did help them out with a sanitation project to redo their restrooms facility. It was in really dire conditions. And with the school that had over 700 kids, they only had six stalls and a failing septic system. So we put our money together and we hired local contractors, come in and demolish the whole thing and give them a bigger septic system and then increase the number of stalls. So now they have, I believe, five stalls for the girls and five stalls for the boys and a wash station. Wow, that's amazing, it's amazing. What partnerships do you have in the local community? Is there other specific groups that you choose to work with? I know that you worked with Kahawiki last year and with the homeless in the airport area. Is there, what other organizations do you work with? Or maybe you'd like to talk a little bit about homelessness and your work with Kahawiki? Well, our work with Kahawiki was mainly like a painting and construction project and me being a painter, I personally went down there and I painted a few of those units and there was also gardening that our members did for there and also another project that we're working on right now is part of our New York District project which is working at the Serenity Gardens in, on the North Shore for Ho'olana Pua. Great, well let's take a break for a couple of minutes and we'll come back and we'll talk a little bit about Ho'olana Pua and the issue of human trafficking and what we're doing on the North Shore. Okay. Thank you, Steven. Thank you. Aloha, this is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About where every other week, Mondays at three, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation and world and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're gonna learn a lot. You're gonna come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at three o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Aloha, I'm Yukari Kunisue, the host of Konnichiwa Hawaii, Japanese talk show on Think Tech, Hawaii. Konnichiwa, Hawaii is all Japanese broadcast show and is streamed live on Think Tech at two p.m. every other Monday. Thank you so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. I'm Yukari Kunisue. Mahalo. Aloha and welcome back to Rotary in Hawaii, people of action. And it sounds like the Rotary Club of Waikiki is filled with people of action. We've been talking with president of the Rotary Club of Waikiki, Steven Morgan, about some of the service that his club does in our local community. And he mentioned before we took a break the issue of human trafficking, which is near and dear to my heart and our focus for the district for the year. And we've been working with Ho'ola Napua on a service project on the North Shore to create a serenity garden for survivors of human trafficking within our community. So, Steven, Ho'ola Napua has been working on a property to provide facilities for survivors of human trafficking. And human trafficking is a significant issue in our community and I appreciate your efforts and your club's efforts to tackle the problem and provide some facilities. The serenity garden is intended for, used to provide an area where people who have been involved in human trafficking and are now out of it, especially young girls, have a place to meet with counselors, have a place to do yoga and that kind of stuff. And it involves clearing more than two acres of land that was overtaken with grasses and weeds and trees and all kinds of things. Tell me about your experience and your club's experience at the facility with the serenity garden. Well, as of right now, it's a work in progress and we were just there this past weekend clearing out a whole bunch of trees. I went around with the chainsaw, cutting down a whole bunch of trees and clearing brush and we found a mango tree that nobody even knew was there. Overtaken. I guess what I'd really like to ask you is what does that mean to you? How satisfying is it for you to be part of a project that will benefit people that you'll never meet, to benefit young children who have been involved in an activity that is stolen in their childhood and they've survived and now when we get done with this, they'll have a place where they can begin to be reintegrated into society. What does that mean to you personally, I guess? Well, it gives you a real sense of satisfaction inside. Seeing something that's overtaken with weeds and brushes to take it and you get the instant satisfaction seeing a tree come down and clearing an area and after the day is over, you look back and like, wow, this is something that can actually happen and to look into the future and to see kids in there and planting things and getting on with their lives and not thinking of the horrible things that's happened to them in the past. Yeah, that's an important aspect I think of what we do. So much of our service to humanity, to other people involves people that will never meet, they'll never be saying thank you to us but we do it because we can and because we love what we do. Let's talk a little bit about your club. How many members in your club and what's the diversity? What is it that in terms of, I guess, professions and that kind of stuff, let's talk about the business of rotary. Well, like you mentioned that, our club is really diversified as far as age and race and gender. Currently we have, I believe, 68 members. We started the year with a little bit more. We've lost some, it's with a lot of Rotary Clubs. We gain and lose some throughout the year but as far as the diversity, we've got a really good mix of professions to where we can look to other people in our club as far as realtors and financial advisors and we recently inducted a member who's a florist. So that's a good connection there and you make a lot of good business contacts. Okay, you guys have any fun? We do have a lot of fun. We are known as the Friendly Club. The Friendly Club, right? So we are also singing club. We sing every week to our guests and we try to have a lot of fun. I'm trying to have a lot of fun being president this year. Sometimes it gets a little nervous but I think everybody is liking it. Is having a good time. Yeah, we make a lot of friends also. You get a lot of visitors, right? I mean, you're in Waikiki in the center of the visitor action, if you will. You get a lot of visitors. Do you have any notable visitors that you just like, wow, they came from far, far away? We do actually, being in Waikiki, we get visitors from all over the world. Australia, Japan, Europe, South America, what have you. We do get a lot of international visitors that come to our club. I'd like you to take a minute, if you will, and talk about your International Food Fest. I know it's your primary fundraiser but what is it that you do with the International Food Fest? How does that look? If you were to describe it to somebody who might be interested in participating and coming to it, when do you do it, what's involved? As you said, our International Food Fest is our annual fundraiser that is the primary source of funding for our club. Not only does it keep our club running but it funds all of the service projects that we do throughout the year. If I were to paint a picture of what it's like, it's a pretty big party. We have this food stations from around the world and we have silent auction, we have DJ, we have band, we have dancing, but mainly it's a big get together, like a big fellowship of Rotarians from not only the district but as I said earlier we have a big delegation from our sister clubs from Japan and Taiwan that come every year and they look forward to this event every year. Great, great. So question for you. Let's move to our international convention. So Rotary has an international convention every year, 25 to 30,000 people and our convention this last year was in Toronto, Canada. Prior to that we had one in Atlanta, Georgia and Seoul, South Korea. So they're held around the world with exciting activities and you went to the one in Toronto. What was that like? I did and as I said earlier through Rotary I've gotten many opportunities to travel and going to Toronto was one of them and it was really great experience going to an international convention to see Rotarians from all over the world dressed in their native garb and just to be able to interact, we went on a field trip to Niagara Falls and we got to interact with Rotarians from Kenya and other clubs in Africa which was really great. Yeah, I wanna share a quick story with you because I share your enthusiasm for our international convention. I was at the international convention in Atlanta, Georgia and I sat at a table for lunch and on my left was a Rotarian from Pakistan and on my right was a Rotarian from India and if you know the history of that region of the world many thousands of years of no peace of really combative stance towards each other frequently. I thought that it was absolutely only in Rotary would you find two people from the regions of the world sitting down and having lunch together and having a dialogue and conversation without it being set up, just a natural gravitation. This year we're having our convention in Hamburg, Germany and then next year we're going to have our convention here in Honolulu. 25,000 people from or more from around the world will converge here to share peace and goodwill and conversation and dialogue. Are you, is your club involved in any of the planning and for that? We do have a member of our club which is, I believe a couple members of our club which are part of the planning process for the 2020 convention which is gonna be here in Honolulu. I am also a part of a Rotarian fellowship which is called the Surfer's Unite Rotarian Fellowship or S-U-R-F where we're trying to recruit members to joins where we can have an event for the 2020 convention that would be maybe held in Waikiki, like a paddle off or polio, maybe type of event. Wow, so surfers, a surfing fellowship. So I'll use surfers out there who want to engage in surfers from around the world. Rotary is the place for you to come together with them. Stephen, I would like to thank you very much for your participation and your insight this morning as we share about the Rotary Club of Waikiki. Real quick before we wrap up here, Rotary Club of Waikiki meets at, we meet at the Prince Waikiki Hotel Wednesdays at noon. Wednesdays at noon. So thank you for joining us once again and we're thankful to Think Tech Hawaii for hosting this program. We appreciate the opportunity to engage our community, find solutions to community problems and then take action.