Inouye recalls friend skipping school because he didn’t have basic supplies

PO’IPU – U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai’i, recalled asking a Filipino classmate during their grade-school days why the boy had missed the first week of classes one school year.

“I no more pencil,” was the boy’s reply.

That memory stuck in Inouye’s head, and is a reason he continues in his capacity as honorary chairman, along with wife Maggie, of the Ready To Learn (RTL) program, which raises funds to provide basic school supplies to low-income students across the state, the senator said.

His remarks came during the annual Ready To Learn fund-raising dinner, held Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Kaua’i Resort & Spa.

Inouye said earlier that special consideration is made during distribution of school supplies, so that students aren’t necessarily aware that they qualify for the free supplies because they are from low-income families.

“Children are very sensitive to being segregated,” Inouye said of rich versus poor families. “You have to be careful to keep from getting bit by that virus. It can have a cruel impact later on.”

“No child should be ashamed to go to school because he or she doesn’t have basic school supplies,” reads the Ready To Learn 2002 annual report cover. That thought could have occurred to Inouye during his school days in Hawai’i, or during his statesman years in Washington, D.C.

“Through the exceptional goodwill of Hawai’i’s local community, the program is able to provide Hawai’i’s needy children with the basic school supplies they could otherwise not afford,” he said.

In calendar 2002, Ready To Learn donors and volunteers helped service 27,000 children.

A program of Helping Hands Hawai’i, RTL is run entirely on donated supplies, money and time, and has since 1998 been “adopted” by Inouye, initially during a re-election campaign. Maggie Inouye is a former school teacher.

The senator’s idea of taking an O’ahu-based program statewide celebrates its fifth year of philanthropy.

Organizers of the Po’ipu dinner hoped to raise $60,000 to buy school supplies for needy Kaua’i children for the 2003-04 school year.

After expenses, $90,000 was raised, said Dave Kane, general manager of Trex Enterprises, a high-technology firm with offices in Lihu’e and Waimea.

All the money stays on Kaua’i, he said. The Kaua’i total is equivalent to nearly 50 percent of Ready To Learn’s total 2002 revenues ($198,485). Statewide, the program ended calendar 2002 with $20,000 in the bank.

In previous years, surplus money raised on Kaua’i actually helped buy school supplies for needy children on other islands.

Through a simple application process through schools or other sources, families who qualify financially get sets of basic school supplies for every school-aged child in the household.

Pencils, pens, paper, markers, composition tablets, three-ring notebooks, crayons, scissors and other items are in age-appropriate packages.

At the Kaua’i dinner, platinum sponsors donated $5,000 apiece to the cause, while gold sponsors pitched in $1,000 each. Individual contributions added up, too, Kane said.

Platinum sponsors included Trident Systems, Trex, Textron Systems, Solipsys, Shioi Construction, SAIC, Orincon, Oceanit, Loea, Lockheed Martin, KIUC, Hyatt, General Atomics, First Hawaiian Bank, Envisioneering, DSR, Dow Corning and Boeing.

Gold sponsors are Xontech, Ron’s Electric, R Electric, Princeville Corporation, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Pahio Resorts, Northrup Grumman, Kodani & Associates, KIUC, King Auto Center, Kilauea Agronomics, Kikiaola Land Company, Kiahuna Golf Course, Kaua’i Commercial, Hale Kaua’i, Grove Farm, Gay & Robinson, Dynalectron Corp., Dr. Bruce MacDonald, Computer Science Corp., Collins and Company, Big Save, and Belles Graham Proudfoot & Wilson.

Another corporate sponsor is NFL Charities.

Information on RTL is available by calling 1-808-841-4593, and at www.readytolearnhawaii.org.

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).