LIHU‘E — The celebration designating Kaua‘i County as a Preserve America Community is open to the public starting at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday at the Lihu‘e Civic Center, Mo‘ikeha Building courtyard.

Joining the celebration will be U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, Office of National Marine Sanctuaries Director Dan Basta and the county Administrative Assistant Gary Heu.

The Preserve America Community program recognizes and designates communities, including neighborhoods in large cities, which protect and celebrate their heritage, use their historic assets for economic development and community revitalization, and encourage people to experience and appreciate local historic resources through education and heritage tourism programs, states the Preserve America Web site.

With the Preserve America Community designation, the county becomes eligible for federal Preserve America grants and other assistance to its historic preservation and heritage tourism efforts, states a release from NOAA.

Last month, University of Hawai‘i and local students worked with NOAA staff to complete the 2009 Return to Shipwreck Beach maritime heritage survey on the north shore of Lana‘i.

The team, led by NOAA’s Maritime Heritage Program in the Pacific Islands Region and supported by a Preserve America Initiative Grant of $10,350, documented the wreck site of an inter-island steamship lost on Lana‘i’s Shipwreck Beach, an eight-mile stretch of remote coastline facing the Moloka‘i Channel.

Kaua‘i County becomes the third community to be designated in Hawai‘i.

There are more than 750 cities, counties and neighborhoods that share the designation across 50 states and territories.

For more information, visit www.preserveamerica.gov.

• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com.