 navigating the journey. And today what a journey it is. In fact, I think it's 20 plus years we're going that ending up to today. Today we are visiting with my dear friend and everybody that follows knows I only talk to dear friends, but my dear friend Melinda Gong. Now Melinda is over on Maui and we came together in the year 2000. I think it was something like that. And that moment began the Martin Luther King Peace Poem Project. And every year from all of the schools all across the state of Hawaii thousands of kids write poetry and then every year on every island there is an award ceremony for those kids on that island. So Melinda, there you are. Welcome, welcome, welcome Melinda. It's so great to see you. Hello Marsha. Hello everyone in television land. Yeah so that's the tell us about the piece, the original peace poem that we all signed on and sent off to the UN. Tell us about that one. Thank you, thank you. Well Marsha in the year about 1994 a group of poets formed together on Maui and we began reading together and formed the Maui Live Poetry Society. And one of our members Frank Rich came up with the idea of creating the world's longest poem and I said we have to make it about something everyone wants, everyone needs. So we decided to create the world's longest poem on peace. We began this in 1996 with the goal of asking everyone worldwide and I asked everyone out there worldwide right now to send a poem on peace to us. It doesn't have to rhyme, it can be in the language of your choice and basically we asked you to express your ideas on peace. Send it to peacepoem.org and we will include your peace poem with the world's largest poem on peace. What we did was we had a mission. We decided we create the world's longest poem and we wanted to present it to the United Nations in the year 2000. So we worked, we worked and we worked and we began with the beautiful ceremony in Lahaina under the banyan tree. The mayor at that time mayor Linda Lingle sent her words of peace and we had a ceremony and we began though with the youngest person there, a child, six years old because we wanted the truth and the innocence of childhood about peace. And little Libby Barker from Florida, six years old, wrote the first lines on the peace poem and since that time we worked very hard and we worked with the United Nations and then we decided in 1999 to involve the schools and to involve the children. So we invited every school statewide the first year was to send the invitations out and then in the year 2000 we had our very first awards for the children that participated in the Dr. King peace poetry contest. All of those poems that we received from the children yearly are included in our beautiful international peace poem and so every year we have continued to work with every school and ask all the teachers to send us poems on peace. And then we choose winners from every class so every child has a good chance of winning and those children receive a certificate from the mayor of their island and they receive a prize from the international peace poem project. And then we select top winners who receive very special prizes that are awarded by different artists statewide. I want to draw your attention to this photo behind me. This was our prize in the year 2000. This was a photo presented to us by the Polynesian Voyaging Society on their worldwide voyage for peace and at this time the Hokulea was voyaging through Micronesia when this photo was taken. And so this was selected as our prize. Now also this year was a year of social justice and we thought very carefully about what quote to include from Dr. King and then I remind you Dr. King was a reverend first and then was drawn to work for the greater good of civil rights I think. But what we chose and I'm searching this down and read it to you is this quote which he delivered December 1963 at a speech at a church and he wrote no no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. So this was our prize and it was sent out to all of our winners this year. This year we had 2033 students enter statewide and we selected winners from each class so we had 285 winners statewide and that's not unusual for us every year we receive them. The very first year here in Honolulu and Melinda said well we've got these children what about the awards who's going to do that and she's done and I said the mayor she said the mayor really I said yes the mayor so Jeremy Harris was the mayor and we had all these and he blocked out 15 minutes of his schedule invite them up to his office and we had a 300 plus people mothers fathers grandparents cameras everybody showed up the whole hall was full and it spent the rest of the afternoon he met every child shook every hand posed for every family and it was an absolute success and after that he's the next year he said we're going downstairs which was the courtyard and that has been that was the same that was our guiding light after that after that year every mayor on every island came out to meet the children to give out the awards and the one that we have today the picture we have that's it that one is kind of special because that is Mayor Billy Canoy giving the award the grand prize to is his name Brooke I think it was Brooke what was it yes yes yeah wonderful so that was very special because Billy was sick and he said do his office because they all the office was wonderful to us and in fact until this year they're still doing it even though he's no longer mayor and he said he wouldn't be there and I told Melinda call the office back tell him Marcia said be there so sure enough he showed up still this and he kind of eased in and I asked him to come up on the stage that's the picture you saw and the audience stood and cheered and just loved him like you've never seen anything and it was that's why that was so special to see all those parents just such love such love and he whispered to me and he said I needed that but as we know that he had this horrible cancer he had bone marrow transplants all kind of things and he managed to stay until just what it was last week week before last something like that but it was he was it was such a special moment and that's why I really wanted to talk about that how special that was not only for Brooke but for all of us everybody that was in that room that moment and all of those if you just go to Billy Kanoa you will see how many times he quoted Martin Luther King in all of his speeches how awesome and the one the prize he got that year led Martin Luther King quote on it and it was about we have all come here on different boats but now we're all in the same boat boat and that was such a special moment but then all of them have been special all every year after year after year Melinda tell us about the one on Molokai that like this Molokai is a delightful island it's very small and part of Maui County and for some years we had been successful in bringing students to us from Molokai on the ferry but now those things have been discontinued so we go to Molokai now and we took Marsha with us the first year and we were able to honor the children there the wonderful thing about a marvelous teacher there Greta Martinez is very very gifted and she has managed to have these children write in Hawaiian poetry with an English translation which we have been really seeking and supporting and asking for all these many years because you know in the convention the con con as you call it Marsha yeah the language of the Hawaiians was said to be you know part of our constitution just with English so we seek the Hawaiian language we see the Hawaiian immersion program growing and changing and I've been a guest now in classrooms where the students truly are speaking almost literally all the time in Hawaiian and as I was listening poetry the teacher had to walk in and explain a metaphor in Hawaiian to the children so this darling little boy on Molokai but biggest moment darling little boy he read his poem in Hawaiian very well but then Melinda asked him to tell us in English and he couldn't do that his mother had to help him with the English I thought that was so precious but it shows it shows the the return of the language the return of the understanding of the importance and for us to promote the Hawaiian language and poetry is so important because I think poetry is really the essence of a language when we begin to talk with our dreams with our heart and look to what we want and hope to be it's poetry so to have that in Hawaiian means that the Hawaiian people here have got their soul back but he like I said this little kid was just precious his Hawaiian was perfect you could hear it you could hear the flow in it and everything but then when he tried the English and his mother rescued him of course but that was such a precious moment yes and we we look forward to returning to Molokai and to all the islands and and to a better life once we are able to master this this pandemic but um this year we're we're continuing the contest again we want all the teachers to send us their poems statewide and we will send you your winners we'll choose winners from every island and um you can go to our website piecepome.org and if you need help with lesson plans please contact me i'm available at all times and we really hope this year more importantly than ever the children will have a chance to write poetry this is a big year for children to have recognition and to feel that what they have to say is important and it is important in ways that i never dreamed we would it would have um one young lady i see her mother fairly regular and she's this young lady was in pre in middle school and now she graduated from college and she's teaching but her that was one of those things her mother said that they put on her application for the university was the peace poem project of the winner of the peace poem and she said that made all the difference in the world and i have met people over the years that tell me oh my child did this oh thank you thank you thank you how much it has meant not only to the child but to the family and as they move through the university it has meant so much to so many people i think marsha what you have said to me a number of times at our awards is to remember that sometimes this may be the only child i'm sorry the only time that that individual child will receive special recognition and um as you say you walked into a home somewhere and they had one of our prizes on the wall because um the children were winners i went into a tiny little restaurant here in maui about four years ago with one of my poets and uh there was a little boy serving us it sometimes happened it was a it was an asian restaurant and this little boy came and he was only about third grade and he recognized me and he had been one of our winners and i said oh oh do you still have our prize and he said wait he ran from the table and most many people as you know they they live above the restaurant he was back in less than five minutes with his prize and his certificate i think he probably had him right next to his bed but i mean it meant it meant so much to him that it was there and for me to to see what it meant to him was a great reinforcement of of what we do to marsha well and one of the big things here on oahu are the children and family that make the trip from the why and i coast all the way down to honolulu holly to receive the award and that's such a long trip and it just means so much to their families and to see that this child because you know most people i don't know what about on maui but here most people don't pay attention to the children out on the why and i coast and so this is really something very special like i said this is the one time maybe maybe it doesn't happen often well yes it does there's one young lady that comes from the why and i coast she's been coming every year since she was at top yeah and the answer to those yes and that is the other part is that we were there not only to encourage and find honor and respect and a continuation of the values and and the beliefs of dr king but also for the poetry for the poetry and we had a little boy on maui it was his third time at the awards he was in third grade well what about the one that was in kindergarten that won every year he had been there every year kindergarten and second and he was in third grade so we had found him he was a true poet and the other thing is that our poets are chose our winners are chosen by a board of maui poets every year and they're different every year and if you even know the school or the eye you know you you can't work on that fold or somebody else does so this little boy kept emerging which means he's a true poet the judges kept finding him different judges every year so we have given these children a springboard um a recognition and a sense of of their own destiny perhaps that they will grow up to become a writer a great poet uh you know i believe that that hawaii has this history and that we are evolving into that literary component that reflects the hawaii way of life and that is really reflected in the poetry that we receive dolphins and fishing and the beauty and the wonder of life here and how wonderful the hawaii way of life is in terms of equality within the system and all of these children loving each other no matter the color of their skin well i think it was molokai maybe yeah molokai where the children not only wrote the poems but they illustrated the poems was that molokai uh yes uh we received some marvels from all the islands but molokai particularly uh in fact i'll step away and come back with one i will show you because i have them right here i was on the bus one day and this lady came up to me and she said are you marcia i said yes she said i saw you my daughter did and she went on and on to tell me the whole bus ride about her child winning the award and how proud she was of her child and how she's grown and it's always amazing to see here all of these award winners and the little ones the big ones and how pleased how proud they are that they have written their poems and then they get to read them at the award ceremony they get to read their poems there we are that's molokai yes yes peace is and then this one is not in hawaii quite often they are but it'll give you an indication of the type of work that these kindergartners do now this is from Greta Martinez's class in in molokai at the koalafu civic charter school and she does remarkable work remarkable work she's been our teacher of the year i do want to add that we do choose also a teacher of the year for each island and they receive a certificate from the governor recognition for teaching excellence we're very proud of working with governor's office he also honors our top winners with special certificate as well and i and we we are fortunate to receive some wonderful gifts now this for instance is just a photo image of the lithograph that was sent to our first place winner that we had displayed a little while ago the lithograph is signed by the artist and it's from Dick Sargent's fine arts in Lahaina and it will be something that she can keep forever or if she asks to she can sell it for a semester and get to college well now tell me going into this year when we're still out of school you know how is it how are the teachers going to do the poems with the with the children that are on zoom and not in the classroom how is that going to work well i think that the students are sending work to their to their teachers so the teachers can print out the poems and just put them in an envelope and either mail them to me and we have sent invitations to every school statewide or they can just email them to me whichever way they would like but we've been receiving we've already received we've gotten four schools so far already and we're going to the middle of March so it's it's very simple most of our teachers and i say our teachers have many many returning teachers but we always hope for new ones every year and returning ones to ask other teachers to join them in the project and email your poems to Maui at poem at maui.net they can just contact me through peace poem dot org and they can get further any questions i'm happy to help also here on maui i'm available to go out and and work with teachers in the schools night than that in the past to to help present a poetry lesson because i i'm a retired teacher and i i love teaching poetry so that's how send me your poems put them in an envelope and mail them to post office box 102 in Lahaina or email them to poem at maui.net so you have invited all of the teachers statewide already done it yeah i what i do is i um actually i get the emails from the department of education and i email every principal in the state which is what i've done this year and um then i personally email all of our former teachers to invite them to contribute again to to send us poetry i i think it's a marvelous marvelous project i think that many teachers enjoy it because they get to really spend time on civic ideas and in teaching in the classroom it's so important to bring out ideas what liberty is what justice and equality is really all about and the children explore those ideas and poetry is such a great vessel of exploration um that you you are continually surprised as a teacher at what your children can do and quite honestly the surprise goes all the way up now i will tell you a story and i won't mention any names but this is a true story this happened early in the contest we had chosen a child and she was a grandchild grand prize winner for Oahu and i got a call from the principal and said oh no no no this this can't be right and i said oh no this is the child that oh but this child is evidently this child was not a star student and she was not on everybody's list to succeed and i think for some reason it surprised the principal that this particular student was a winner but i said no no this child is you know this was no accident she's our grand prize winner and she was she wrote a wonderful poem and this was around the year 2000 and she said oh makes you beat she said Manhattan is a wash in tears i've never forgotten that line i i still remember that poem you know so it's it's so interesting how we still have to work we still have so much work to do to to accept our own children and to believe in them always and then year after well this of course last year we did not have the wonderful celebration and but now we hopefully we will this year hopefully and we we have a new mayor here on Oahu we put all of the mayors since 2000 every mayor since Jeremy have all participated the one year we didn't have a mayor participate where we didn't have Doug Chen he was the the managing director or yes yes yeah he sat with the children he had the best time oh my goodness you've never seen anything yes and moofy oh my goodness moofy you know how tall he is and the little kids and moofy was in every picture with the children all of every year the mayors have always had such a good time they've always honored us with their help and we're so delighted that they do and we hope that this year will be the best year yet yes yes well listen we are out of time but that was wonderful the time went so fast and Melinda and where's Gary he's in the back room okay we met Gary the first year I think it was the first year and he had his camera and he was writing about us because nobody else did none of the others and it was that's how we met Gary and now you're married to Gary so so Gary thank you for all the years and all the love and now thank you and aloha aloha it's been a pleasure