 I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is a highly respected leader who's doing great things by promoting literacy and healthy living here in Hawaii. She is our First Lady, Don Amano Ige, and today we are going Beyond Washington Place. Hi First Lady Don, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Hi Rusty, it's great to see you, and it's great to hear from you, especially about tennis. You're connected to tennis because my husband played tennis and was, I guess, I think captain of his tennis team when he was in high school, so I'm looking forward to this interview. Yeah, when I had Governor Ige on my show a few years ago, he told me about him, you know, playing tennis, and so I'm still waiting to play tennis with him. Well, you're welcome to come here to Washington Place. Our courts need a little repair, but we'd love to have you and watch a game of tennis. Okay, deal. And First Lady, can you tell me about your background growing up here in Hawaii? Sure. I grew up here in Hawaii in Ewa Plantation. At that time it was a sugar plantation time when agriculture was a big part of our economy. My mother was a cafeteria baker of our high school, my father a crane operator. I went to Ewa Elementary School, and as First Lady I go there every year for their Abraham Lincoln Day program, went to Ilema Intermediate and graduated from Campbell High School. After that I went on to the University of Hawaii and really tried, at first I started off in pre-med, but I think David was in my class and he was much better in chemistry than I was, so and I decided after a while I wanted to change and majored in journalism instead, and I loved journalism, I loved the writing and the reporting of stories, but I did go into public relations right after that instead. I went on to, after working for a bit, I went on to Shamanad University of Honolulu for my master's degree in business, then did a bit of change in career and then went on to get an elementary school certificate from the University of Hawaii at the College of Education, but as you can see, I worked and I'm not a work, but learned a lot to education, I love my time in those learning environments. Well First Lady, so before becoming First Lady, what jobs did you have in education and in business? Well I first started off in business and I started my career in public relations with Striker-Weiner Associates and I did a lot of corporate PR, press conferences and special events, then I went on to Kapiolani Healthcare System that was Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children and I started off as a strategic planner there, so I learned a lot about strategic planning, marketing, and then developed the hospital marketing plan, from that I became marketing director and did marketing for the hospital and at that time hospitals and healthcare associations weren't really marketing, so this was a change and a transition for them, so it was really exciting for me to be able to do that and what better thing to market, it's healthcare for women and children, so I loved the job, I loved what I was doing, and then I had children and became interested in how children learn to read and communicate, so I worked at a school as a part-time team here and decided to go back to school to get my certificate in elementary education, then became a third grade teacher for over 10 years, loved the third grade classroom, the kids are wonderful, but then wanted to do more for the school entirely, so I went into administration and became vice principal of a high school, that was a very steep learning curve for me, but that was the trajectory they decided that I would go on, loved the high school, it's just an amazing environment where so many students go through so much, they learn so much, they experience so much, and it's just a privilege to be part of that environment, and so I ended the education part of my career in education as a vice principal of Monolua High School and then at Kanoalani Elementary School, and when you're working in that kind of school environment with students, it's very, it's very inspiring. So first lady, when you were a third grade teacher at Waimalu Elementary, what did you like most about teaching those youngsters? You know, I think the thing I loved the most and what kept me going every day were the students, and it's how they think and how they look at the world. It's so different and so refreshing from the way we look at things, they can take a math problem and they can just look at it from a different angle, or they can hear a story and a little part of the story that may not be the biggest part of the story becomes such a part of them because they've experienced something similar in their lives. So the day-to-day connections with the students in their learning process is just something that you can, that's why you're a teacher, I think. You get to see them learn and blossom and you see how they think, which is what you want to really encourage and inspire, and they make me laugh every day. There's something that they would say to just keep me going. I can have a terrible day, but, you know, they'll say thank you to me or they'll give me a hug at the end of the day, and it just makes everything okay. And that's third graders, they're just so inspiring, I think, to many of us. It's definitely a great age and it's always exciting with them. First Lady Dawn, I want to ask you about Ohana Readers, and why do you have such a great passion for literacy with children? Ohana Readers is an early education literacy program, and it began with a partnership. It's with Dolly Parton Imagination Library, the state library system, Friends of the Library, Department of Human Services, and we all got together to develop this literacy program. It's been here done here before where children between the ages of zero to five receive a book in the mail, and that's through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. So every month they go to their mailbox and they get a book, and they can read the book together with their families. And this is such an important program because that early literacy allows for children to bond with their families. It helps them develop their creativity or vocabulary. It's just that prime time for children between the ages of zero to five. That's when brain development occurs the past. So we want to take that opportunity to really enrich them in an age appropriate way. And so these books are targeted to children according to their age. It has a lot of sounds, color, stories where they can really connect with the person reading to them. And we chose because we have a limited budget, we're always bound by budget. We decided to just focus on a community and we decided to focus on Molokai and Lanai. So that program is done in that area to really help promote literacy among our earliest learners, which is really the most important time for them to begin and start engaging in literacy. I love hearing all of that and you're making such a great impact with those youngsters. And firstly, Don, I know you have my book and what I really love is I heard that a fourth grade girl in California read my book. And I also love that many alumni in our state, they're buying my books in bulk and then donating it to schools, which they're loving that to try to make an immediate impact. But I want to ask you, because my book is about leadership and we're trying to really inspire our future leaders of our community. What do you feel the best leaders do? No, I think there's so many things a leader has to do. But for me, the most important, I think, is communications. Because you need to communicate to the people that you're serving. And you need to communicate a clear vision so they know what direction you're moving in. And that's that's just the start though. I think you have to do a lot of homework before that. In order to create your vision, you have to have a firm understanding of what's important to you, and what's valuable to you, and then have a strong commitment in serving the people that you serve. I think those are some of the basic things that leaders need to be able to have and to be able to communicate. And communication, I think, is both ways. Communication is sharing the information, but also being willing to listen and to receive the information back. Because you're always going to adjust to what other people are, you know, if they have good ideas, I'm going to take their good ideas and go with it. Because we want the best for the people. And sometimes you find the best ideas in in all kinds of places, even with that fourth grade girl that read your book. I think that's a great start for her to become a leader and to start thinking like a leader. I love hearing what you said, and I completely agree with you. And yes, listening is a huge part of communication and not not a lot of leaders, you know, listen as much, but the great ones they do. And I'm glad you brought that up. And can you tell me first lady about no kid hungry? Sure, no kid hungry is a is a nonprofit organization that's a national organization, just assuring that children who need food receive the food they need their job is to reduce food insecurity. So for Hawaii, no kid hungry has supported many of our food insecurity programs. And the one I'm working in particular with is working with the Department of Education Food Services branch. The DOE is the largest restaurant in our state. And it's also an opportunity to provide food for kids who need the food. So it's just a way for us to work with them in order to get food to children. When I first started working with no kid hungry, and this was before the pandemic, I learned that Hawaii was last in the country for participation for free and reduced lunch, free and reduced breakfast. And I thought that was surprising here, we had breakfast, but the kids weren't participating in it. So we had to decide why aren't they receiving breakfast? Why aren't they going to eat breakfast? So we had learned that sometimes they didn't they didn't wake up in time, or they didn't go to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. So no kid hungry provided us funds to look for ways to promote breakfast to look at alternative delivery systems. And one of the delivery system was to have a grab and go breakfast, meaning that breakfast would be packed up in a in a sack in a in a paper package, kids could pick it up in the cafeteria and go and eat wherever they wanted to eat out in the school yard back in the classroom. And they would eat their breakfast that way. And they wouldn't just have to eat in the cafeteria. And we found that very successful because it gave the kids flexibility on where they ate. Another one, another program that we tried on a white elementary was breakfast in the classroom. Or kids would get served breakfast as their first part of the day. And that worked out really well. The kids would eat with their classmates, they would they would be doing some classwork, they would have a healthy breakfast, and a great way to start the day. So kids wouldn't be hungry at 830 in the morning or at nine o'clock, they would have they would have a full stomach with a nutritious meal and ready to learn. And I thought that was very important. Now, you're also very involved in the jumpstart breakfast initiative. And that is like, that's such a great program. Can you tell me more about that? So that is what I just shared was part of the jumpstart breakfast initiative. It is looking for alternative ways to serve breakfast and to serve meals to the children. So that was, we did that under the umbrella of jumpstart breakfast. But we've changed that now from jumpstart breakfast. And now we're calling it grab and go. Because of course, now during the pandemic, kids aren't eating breakfast in school or they aren't eating their meals in school. So we had to adjust. And we took the grab and go idea from jumpstart breakfast. And we brought it into grab and go where families can now grab and go a child's lunch and breakfast and take it with them. And so during the pandemic, they still have opportunities to receive meals. In addition to that, over 200 schools offer free meals to students. And this is because the USDA had made an adjustment to their lunch program. So even if you're a paying student, you can receive a free lunch or breakfast. And it's at these 200 schools. Well, I like that grab and go. I mean, jumpstart sounds good, but grab and go sounds great too. And why do you have such a passion for healthy living, First Lady? I think health is the basis of our lives. If we have good health, we feel better, we can do more. And it's such an important part of our basic living. Without our health, we can't accomplish as much as we can. So in order to do that, we have to live healthy lives. And we can do that by eating well, exercising, the basic things that require some discipline. I know I'm guilty of not always eating well or exercising all the time. But I think if we all do it together and remind ourselves of it, we have a better chance of accomplishing that. No, I agree with you. The healthy living is so important. And I know that you have a garden at Washington Place. And what is that story with Alan Wong and the garden with the squash? So I'll tell you a little bit more background about our garden. Our garden is an aquaponics garden. And I learned that from it's an idea I brought from Kanualani Elementary School because we had a wonderful aquaponics garden with tilapia fish, and of course, the plants and we taught kids a lot about sustainability and growing your own food. So I wanted to do have the same kind of model here at Washington Place. So when visitors came, they could learn about how an aquaponics system works and how food could be provided. And it's been a very successful program. It's been a very successful garden. So in the past few months, different things grow. One of the things that grew in the garden was a giant squash. It was over 12 pounds, I think, and it was huge. It was about that long. And I what a wonderful vegetable here. And David and I, which is two of us. So we wanted to be able to share the squash. I had been talking to Alan Wong about the restaurant industry during the pandemic. And so I had invited him over to look at the garden. We saw the squash and I had asked Alan, can you make something with this squash to help be, you know, to help be more people than just us at Washington Place. So he took the squash. He cooked it himself. So we have pictures of him cooking. He made a squash soup. And what we did was together, we were able to provide meals to our National Guard members who have been helping us tremendously with the pandemic. And so he had wrapped it very carefully. So it was individually wrapped. They took it home and they were able to share it with their families. And it was our way of saying thank you to the National Guard who has been providing some support during the pandemic. Well, that's so nice to hear what you and Governor did there. And yes, Alan Wong, he's fantastic. He can make anything. And first, first lady, I want to ask you, you know, there's a success can be defined in many ways. How do you define success? You know, whenever we think of success, we think of success as a one time thing. You have a project and then you define it as successful or not successful. But I don't see success as a one time thing. I see success as something that's very long term. If the program is successful, it has longevity. And it has opportunity for growth, sustainability and adjustment. And that's where we see the most successful programs. If it has the ability to last through time. And if it has the ability to adapt to different situations. So during the pandemic, we've all had to adapt what we're doing to something very different because of the pandemic, because of infection and so forth. So I think, you know, we've all had to kind of look at things, redefine things, redefine success even to change it to the needs of the community. And so success means, have we really adapted? Are we adapting? And are we serving the community? And maybe there's no answer, no immediate answer to that. But success is not a one time thing. It is a very it's a long term. It's it's long term. It's a long term commitment. And I think each and every one of us has the ability to be successful in that sense. Yeah, it's definitely a journey. And I love hearing your insights about that. And I want to ask you First Lady, you know, besides family, who is a leader that you admire? You know, when I think about that question, there's more than one leader, you know, you look at a person and there's different parts of their characteristics that you admire. So I would say there's about maybe three people right now that I really admire. And there are people from history, because history teaches us so much from the past. First of all, I admire people who have been able to overcome diverse adversity, and then be able to carry out their duties and responsibilities. So one of them, of course, and this goes back to my childhood days is Abraham Lincoln, he had to, he had to deal with a war, you know, political situations, he had to deal with a country that was so divided, and then had to put the country back together. So he's something someone I admire a lot. And then he took the time to go out to visit the soldiers in the warfields and to listen to them and to hear their heartbreaking stories. So that's one leader. Another one is Eleanor Roosevelt. She's another woman that had to overcome her childhood, some childhood adversity regarding her self-esteem. She rose to be First Lady and was an outspoken leader in civil rights. And she used communications to get her word out. And the communications that she used was her radio show, her newspaper, she even held press conferences. So she was quite an amazing First Lady. And of course, here, just in this home, we have Queen Lili O'Halani, who had to overcome overthrow and was still able to serve the people. So in all these people, what I saw was the ability to really reach out, to listen to people. Eleanor Roosevelt did much of that. She needs to drive on her own and go out to different parts of the community and listen to the stories of hardship and come back to the White House and develop programs to solve some of those problems. Queen Lili O'Halani did the same thing. She took time to listen to her people. So listening was a big part of what these three people did throughout history, and then adjusted and worked their leadership in developing programs that really made a difference for their people. Well, definitely three impactful people there. I love hearing about those three. And First Lady, when you look back in your life so far, what's a valuable lesson that you have learned? What's a valuable lesson? I've learned so many things because I have to say, I've been very fortunate that in each of my jobs, I've had wonderful mentors, Sharon Weiner of Schlegelweiner Associates. I've had Richard Gavi from Kapiolani Medical Center who has passed on Vera Galera at Wanamawa High School. And you know, all those people had an impact in my understanding of six leadership and they helped define leadership for me. And so what advice? I think the advice was simple. It was, don't be afraid to go out there and get things done. It's just, you know, don't let fear stop you or self doubt stop you from doing the things that you believe are important. And once you do them, you can figure out the next steps along the way, but get out there and do something. I like that. First lady, personally or professionally, what's something that you want to do, but you just haven't done yet? Oh, I think, I think this is something that we all I think want to do. And this is we want to see our community heal from COVID-19. And we want to see our community heal in terms of health and economics. And you know, that is a very much a long term effort on all of our parts. It is something that's very important to me. And I'll continue to do that in different areas, whether it be from the grab and go program that the school where the schools can provide food to children, or it might be through a literacy program. One of the things I do is read aloud on my Facebook. And that's been something that I wanted to be able to do to reach out to children virtually or reach out to families virtually. And I do that on a little program as well. So we I think we all take, we all have a part in healing and bringing our community together in this COVID situation. And that's what I that's really what is on top of mind right now. What role can I take? And what role? What can I contribute to help the community come together and heal and move forward on this COVID situation? There are no easy answers. But we're going to work together to make things happen. I like how you're reaching out to people like you said on Olelo and through Facebook, I feel that that's really effective because because of COVID, we have to do it all virtually. And first lady, I want to ask you, what gives you fulfillment? Oh, you know, I think that's a very hard question. You know, I think for me, what gives me fulfillment is being able to do something being able to be part of the journey with people. And in doing so, you're helping others. And you know, I want to be there with them on the journey, because we're all on this journey of life together. And the more people that we can be on this journey together with is I think the most valuable because at the end, what we find most or what I find most enriching is the work we do with other people. People really make up our dreams. They come with different ideas, different backgrounds, different values. And that makes life so exciting and so rich. And we're just so fortunate that in Hawaii, we're able to listen and appreciate all these different ideas and cultures. We don't agree all the time. We're just like a family. We don't agree. We argue, we fight. But at the end, I think all of our hearts are in the right place. I have to believe that. And I have to be an optimist in that, that we're all here together and make our Hawaii the best place it can be. Well, First Lady Dawn, you are definitely inspiring, you're definitely making a positive impact with people here in Hawaii. And I want to thank you for taking time to join me on the show today. It's been a pleasure. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that First Lady Dawn and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.