 Hey, the state of clean energy. I'm your host, Mitch Ewan. We're sponsored by the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum with funding from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. I'm very pleased to introduce our guests today, Renee Akao and Rebecca Choi. They're here to tell us all about their K-Key Heroes COVID safety program and also holiday safety tips and giveaways so how you can take care of your K-Key. So, Renee and Rebecca, welcome to the show. Thank you. Hello. Hello, so my first question is, for our mainland viewers, what in the world is a K-Key? Good question. K-Key are children. So, you know, that's how we say children in Hawaiian. So, we're honored to have that as part of our title, K-Key Heroes for the children. That's great. What age do you graduate from being a K-Key to an adult or a person? You know, I don't think you ever graduate from a K-Key. You might be a K-Key at heart. So, you know, hearts stay. Okay, so, how about telling us what your K-Key program's all about? Tell us about your program. Sure, I'd be happy to take that question, Mitch. So, K-Key Heroes is a program that we developed to empower our community, and especially the children during time of COVID. We felt like there was a vacuum of information that was easy to understand and positive, teaching children how to be safe during this pandemic, keeping ourselves safe, our ohana, our family, and also our community safe. So, how about describing the program? I think you brought some slides along so you can tell us all about it. So, here we go, we have the first slide. And that's actually a snapshot of our website. It's KKeyHeroes.org. And if you go there, you'll see our beautiful color illustration of Kai and Hoku and friends. They're local K-Key that are modeling safe and fun practices that keep all of us healthy during this time. And in our website, there's also on the next page, you'll see a parent site, specifically addressing resources and information for parents and teachers. We've selected COVID related information that's available for adults who care for K-Key and wanna know specifically how it affects our children. And if you go to the next slide, you can also see that here, you can download all of our resources. So, we've worked with a local pediatrician here in Hawaii as well as teachers and educators and mothers like me, I have three little girls to design fun and engaging ways for our children to learn the important messages but also interact with them because the key is that they internalize these messages and not just you have to wash your hands because we've heard that before. But hey, if I wash my hands for at least 20 seconds that removes the germs and that's how I can stay healthy. So, these resources are available online for anybody in the whole world to download. They're free. If you're in Australia, you can download them and use them with your family and encourage your children to learn. It's really great. So, let's look at the next slide and who wants to talk about that? Yeah, that's actually showing one of our posters that we developed and this superpower because we're Kiki heroes by doing what we can to stay safe is about wearing our mask properly. As you can see there, you don't put your nose above the mask and we see that sometimes adults do the same or let it hang or somehow, if it doesn't fit right but showing the Kiki in a very simple way this is how we wear a mask and this is how we keep our germs to ourselves and protect other folks and ourselves as well. And I was gonna say the next page will show you the pledge page that we've developed that shows how Kiki can pledge to be a hero. So, if you go online to our website this is one of the options you'll see on the upper right that says take the pledge and if you go to the next slide you'll see that the Kiki are signing up for ways to be safe and healthy that they wash their hands, they wear a mask, they respect the bubble which is what we call social distancing that's really hard for little kids to understand and be kind and compassionate. Yeah. What age group this geared for? I mean, obviously, will this apply to a kindergartner or preschool, where do you start? Yeah, that's a great question. We actually developed the materials to be targeted to our K through about fifth grade elementary school students. But we actually have been getting a lot of feedback and there's a lot of demand with younger children as well for preschoolers or even home care programs have been reaching out to us saying, we would like to use these materials. So we've been saying that they're actually wide ranging from maybe even two year olds to junior high level students who are willing to do coloring activities, word searches, or cross puzzles. And so we've made it very easy for a wide range of ages to be able to engage. So what kind of, when you say materials, what do you mean by materials? What kind of materials do you have? Yeah, so we have some posters that we started out distributing to schools and businesses in the area. And we've also created some activity books just like this where kids can go in and color and learn together. And then we also have a full color version with the story or comic of Kai and Hoku and their adventures and how they heard about coronavirus and then what they can do to be a hero. So we have these printed materials available for folks on our island. And you can go to keikiheroes.org to request one and you can also download them anywhere around the world. Well, before our viewers panic, like I'm trying to write all this down, the last slide is actually gives all this contact information so you don't have to memorize it. Oh, there it is, the last slide. That's right. And we also wanted to share about how our pledge program, the one that we had shown about how Kiki can check the little boxes and say I'm going to make this pledge to be a Kiki hero. And once they submit that on our website, they'll be able to get a personalized certificate that says I'm a Kiki hero and a little ID card that says I'm a Kiki hero now. And Renee is going to be sharing with us some more information about how those ID cards are going to be used. Okay, Renee. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. So, so far this is an exciting program and it's already going to get more exciting because we are launching a Kiki heroes partners program. So if you could go to the slide with all of our wonderful current supporters, we've been so blessed with the support that we've received in the community. And to formalize this more, we're developing a program called the Kiki heroes partners program. And it's kind of a neat concept because like our Kiki who sign in and take the pledge, so will our partners. So we are asking our supporters on Hawaii Island to take a pledge and we call it the three P pledge. So the first P stands for practice, practicing COVID safety within their business or organization. The second part of that pledge is, excuse me, promising to be an advocate for Kiki COVID safety. So being one of our partners to distribute materials to business members or employees. And then the third part would be to provide our Kiki with wonderful incentives that are designed to motivate them to participate. So as Rebecca mentioned, when our Kiki become a Kiki hero, one of the gifts that they get is they get their membership card. And every child loves to have a little, like a little credit card that they're gonna go out and they can use it various businesses throughout Hawaii Island to get free stuff or discounts on certain things. And it just adds value to the Kiki heroes concept for our Kiki. On the business partnership side, it's a great opportunity for businesses to again advocate for general COVID safety. We're still trying to push that message out in our community. And these partners so far have been great partners in this program. So we're gonna be launching again a more formalized program where we're gonna be doing additional signage and additional opportunities to bring in more partners into our program. So we're very excited to kick this off and we are hoping that it'll gain some momentum over time. But so you can either be a Kiki hero if you're a Kiki or you can be a Kiki hero partner. So see it just, everybody can participate in this great program. You don't have to be a Kiki. You can be a business owner that is aligned to our values. And that's really important to us. Can you get a cape? You know, this is interesting. I was thinking about a cape. Yes, like, cause you know, what's a hero without a cape? Absolutely. We could definitely look into that, Mitch and we will send you one complimentary. How's that? Do one with a lightning bolt on it. For energy. Whatever you want. This is an energy show. That's right. Whatever you want. What's your been your experience? Have you, have you already launched this with the Kiki themselves? I mean, is this out there now? And if so, what has been the reaction from the kiddos? Yeah, so we've had really great reception. We're in all of the elementary schools around the island. There are 18,000 of our little activity books that were circulated. I've heard great feedback from my own children saying, oh, this is fun. And they really enjoy Kainhoku, who are local kids. They look more like kids who are here on Hawaii Island. And I've also received great feedback from teachers, educators, a friend who is a teacher to special education students said that this is perfect in her classroom because it is so simple and easily something she can adapt for special education. So I think that we are getting a lot of great feedback from our community, including folks who are older adults saying, hey, I think this is really pretty. I like one for myself to do some coloring. And we encourage that as well. That's really great. So what's been a reaction from the schools themselves? Because usually it's pretty difficult to introduce new stuff into the program because they have such a heavy program anyway. It's kind of hard to shoehorn something new in there. How's that working? It sounds like it's working great, but I'd like to hear from you. Yeah, so a lot of our schools, like you said, are very challenged in this time because they've got so many different needs in the community that they have to fulfill and so many different changes that are going on with schools. So initially we had developed our materials like posters to be used in schools and some are up for some of the KQ that do come to school for special needs or English education or so forth. But we've heard that for the most part they've been distributing with homework packets and things that go out to the homes. So sometimes some schools will make you pick up materials from school once a week that the teachers will use through remote instruction. Because in Hawaii right now, most of our schools are all remote instruction. So this provides an opportunity to put some of our KQ hero materials into the packages that are going home. All right, well, 18,000 booklets, that's not free. So kind of what kind of a budget do you need to do all the printing and binding and all the paper and everything else like that that goes into producing those kinds of materials. Yeah, and actually if you could pull up that one slide with the logos again. Our supporters have been wide ranging. Amit, you're right, it's not free. All of our team members, we volunteer our time and energy and our efforts and skills. But many of these partners like the folks from the observatories, the engineering partners groups here in Hawaii have been donating their printers and paper initially. So that's how we got started. And then with CARES Act funding through Vibrant Hawaii and County of Hawaii, we've been able to fund our extended efforts because we also have a lovely local illustrator and artist, Yuko Green, who's working on our products as well as the printing materials, as well as we are distributing crayons to certain communities because things like that, it's not something they can easily find at home. We wanna make sure all the needs are met, including the capacity for the cakey to be able to draw and color. So we're trying to meet those needs and we'll be developing some other exciting materials. We have a music video coming up with a cakey phone. And yeah, other ways for children to engage and learn and internalize these messages. So, I mean, you still need some cash though. I mean, it's great that all these companies are donating in kind, but there's still some. So how are you funding that? I mean, is this one of the things you're asking for? Is there people like the Stroka Checker send you some money and how do they do that? Renee, you wanna get that? That is a great question. Yes, and so on our last slide, we do have a link to our donation. Our donation website. So back to the Cakey Heroes Partners program, part of that is to build relationships with these businesses and organizations to continue some of our funding efforts. And you're right, Mitch, money, we need money. So that's true. And again, this is all going towards a great cause, but as you can see there on the slide, there is that donation website. You just simply go there and make a donation. You know, we're always looking for people that believe in the same things that we believe in, what we're trying to advocate for. And so that's what our hope is with this partnership program that we're gonna be launching within the next two weeks is to really build strong relationships with these community leaders so that we can get sustainable funding efforts, not only now, but into the future. So does your website, would that be a credit card donation or what about checks? I mean, if somebody wants to write a check, do they send that? Is there an address there to send a check? Or is that, are checks more difficult? I mean, checks are kind of difficult. Oh, we would take checks any day. All kinds of cash checks, credit cards. We do have a PayPal service that you can easily link to make payments with your bank account or credit card through our website. But there's also our email and contact information. So folks who are really interested in partnering with us long-term and investing in KQ Heroes, we would appreciate just a reach out and we'll contact you and figure out how to make that happen. And I think I just wanted to lastly emphasize that, our current context right now is COVID. With increasing cases and potentially some of the cities are seeing shutdowns again, we really wanna emphasize our efforts in maintaining safety for our community. At the same time, we know that health and wellness is holistic. So if Kiki are healthy, they're eating healthy diets and sleeping well, that also increases their chances of building immunity that will fight against viruses. So we are trying to address also these holistic pieces of health and wellness, including mental health and some of the things that we're seeing in this time of isolation that are very challenging for our community and our Kiki, who don't get to play with their friends like they used to. And so that social emotional peace and making sure that they feel like they are important, they matter, that's all part of what we're working towards. So how many, it's not, it's more than just you and Rebecca doing this. How many people have you got on this team? I mean, you must have, you have a cast of thousands. I mean, how many people are you talking about, you know? You know, we have a core volunteer team of 12 so far. And then we have extended folks who lend us their mana'o and their knowledge and expertise. And we are hiring some expertise like PR and or people who can help us with the videography. So yeah, that's where all the funding will go to is getting the professional help to make sure that our messages are not only relevant and widely shared, but that they're shared in a way that is healthy and positive in this time. So how many people do you think you'd like to attract? I mean, you have enough volunteers or do you want more volunteers? Can somebody volunteer to become a Kiki hero? Yeah, you can volunteer to be a Kiki hero, Mitch. We would love additional help for our team. I think we're also in our team looking for folks who can do some logistics help for us, like mailing out prizes and doing some of the physical distribution as well. Many of us have full-time jobs like Renee who works for Suizon. And you know, so we're all sort of carving out time for this passion project of ours. So if you can lend even a couple of hours a week or whatever it might be or just even resources and connections to folks who may be interested in our project, we would welcome that very much. So tell me about the neighbor islands because this looks like it's an exportable program. Have you had any of the neighbor islands been contacted and are you sharing with some of the neighbor islands? Yeah, that's a really good question for now because our funding is focused here on Hawaii County. That's been our outreach effort. At the same time, we have had inquiries coming in from neighbor islands. We haven't had to directly go out there, but there are programs in Oahu and Maui that we shout and say, hey, can we get some of your materials? And of course we say yes, you can go right online and download them yourself and or if you like them printed, then we'll work with them to be able to provide that. Well, they can have their own dedicated webpage. Like maybe you want to put not a whole webpage, but a contact page. So that might be something you want to work with them like, instead of having to set up a whole new website themselves, which is a lot of effort and a lot of work and yours is a very good website. It's nice and simple too. Is I mean, you could always go out to them and say, hey, look, if you want to share our website as well, we can put in some, like a page for them for contacts, so how people can send money to them and get their businesses organized. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think it would be really open to partnering with folks and whatever ways would encourage us to really, I think the, to Renee's point earlier, we want to work with folks who have a share value with us and about keeping our community safe. And we view that our communities here locally on Hawaii County, but also our communities worldwide, because we have folks coming in from Japan and California and Australia and all over the world. So we would love to share widely. What about the Department of Health? Once again, I mean, this is in their bailiwick as well. We're talking safety and all that kind of stuff. So what's been the reaction or any reaction? Do they know about the program? Are they helping you? Do they help you get CARES money? How does that work? We have been in conversation with the local representatives from the Department of Health here on Big Island. There has not been like a direct correlation with regard to our partnership. I think that's something that we can hopefully build out in the future. We've also worked with a lot of COVID focused efforts in Hawaii, for example, COVID POW and our Kuliana, our efforts that are actively in the same space we are in addressing adult populations, but really trying to keep the COVID counts down on our aim. And so we're working with those organizations, the partner in our messaging efforts as well. And I did see that there was a question from a viewer here that says, how in depth are COVID materials? And I think that we are, what we have provided for a Kiki versus adults are two different kinds of materials. So we try to keep the Kiki materials at a level that is really understandable and easy for Kiki and what they need to know, as well as for the parents and teacher side, we have those COVID resources that are built out. We wanna make sure that any of the materials that we are creating are able to be leveraged by adults that are safe in a Kiki's life to be able to share with them. We're not those people directly, most of the time. I am for my children, but we really believe it's a partnership with parents and teachers to make sure that we provide materials that can be leveraged. And we're continuing to build out our content, working with the doctor and pediatricians in our community. And some of the efforts now that we're considering around, why do we test? Because maybe some of our kids, we will go through the testing process to understand what COVID testing looks like and what it's for, as well as why we may want to immunize and what immunizations are for. And currently, we do have a lot around germs. We have a fun poem about how germs work and especially with COVID, how it doesn't spread, it likes to hop. And that's why we keep six feet apart, which is a surfboard distance for Kiki. Oh, right. I saw that on your, one of your diagram shows a surfboard. Yeah, it's a very good strategy to, like you said, it's a double whammy. Actually, the parents have to learn about it because a lot of the commentary is that, people are all getting too relaxed now and that's why we're starting to see a rise. So like getting the children involved automatically, it's the parents involved and make some rethink it. Like, even I am looking at washing my hands more often than I normally do. And being very careful about social distancing. So yeah, it's really a really good leverage. Children's programs automatically translate into the adult population. Yeah, so Lily, and we believe that we learn together as a family, right? There are some things that our children know that they teach us and there are some things that we help our kids learn. But as we learn together as families, those are the things that help us maintain and build healthy habits. So I think that's part of what our effort is about and empowering parents who are now teachers. Many of them who never signed up for being a full-time teacher are having to teach their kids. So we're really empathizing with them in this time and trying to build out materials that they can leverage to connect with their children in fun and positive ways. So knowing my background, I have us all in that same canoe together. That was the object of this, my background visual there. We're all in that same canoe, hopefully all paddling in the same direction. So how do you keep, I mean, okay, so just the thought is like refreshing the content. So like you go out with the book and the kid, you know, the cakey colors it all up and then it's like, okay, what's next mom? Or, you know, how do we keep it refreshed? Yeah, that's a great question. And so we'll continue to develop printed materials because in some communities, they don't always have access to the internet. So we're mindful of that. But online, we're also building a capacity for a cakey to do interactive activities on our website. So for a cakey that have iPads or they're allowed to use electronics, then they can go out and do online coloring activities right on their electronic iPad and or crossword puzzles or other activities. So we're trying to keep it engaging in multiple formats. And we'll continue to build that multimedia efforts. Like I said, fun videos and songs and things that we can use to all learn together. What about a coloring contest? You are like thinking just like we are. We have one in store. We actually have an art contest planned for January. And we love for people to think about their own ideas of superpowers. Like what's your superpower? And that will help us keep each other safe and help us be healthy. So we'll definitely be doing that in the new year. That's really great. So we have about a minute, a minute and a half to go. So we covered a lot of territory, but we may have missed something. So why don't you, Renee, if we missed anything that you would like to make sure that we talk about before we leave this? Absolutely. One is some holiday, just safety tips for our KK and for our community. We're coming up on some major holidays. So we do wanna continue to emphasize social distancing, mask wearing. It's so easy to get together with family nowadays. It's such a cultural thing for us, but we wanna make sure that it's top of mind for folks to do it safely. So we'll be coming out with some graphics for our KK to relate to as far as Thanksgiving is concerned. We're also gonna be doing a pledge giveaway in December. So again, back to that pledge. If you wanna be a KK hero, you have to take that pledge. It's really important. And in order to motivate our KK to do so, we'll be coming out with an exciting giveaway in December. So stay tuned for that. We'll have more information coming out about that. And then of course, our KK heroes partnership program, we're gonna be rolling that out soon as well. So we've got a lot of exciting things coming up, Mitch. Rebecca did such a great job explaining who we are, what we're about. And our goal is to really just get people's attention to this great cause. And so we appreciate our opportunity coming on the show and sharing what we're about. Well, it's really great having you two ladies on. So we're out of time now. So I'd really like to thank Renee Akao and Rebecca Troy, our guests today. Fabulous program ladies. This is really great and it's all grassroots stuff. Doing good. And for both the KK's and the parents for all of us. So thank you so much for helping and keeping everybody safe. And this is Mitch Yuan signing off from Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And I'll be back next Wednesday. Aloha. Aloha, bye-bye.