PO‘IPU — Doug Beane has been a virtual one-man army for more than a year in Po‘ipu.
But all that changed Saturday when more than 30 volunteers from the Po‘ipu area joined him in a workday designed to spruce up the heavily-used popular beach park.
“Doug works for us and has been cleaning the park by himself for over a year,” said Chuck Brady, the human resources director at the Marriott Waiohai Vacation Club. “So we thought why not get some of the guys out to help him.”
Maureen Murphy, president of the Kaua‘i Outdoor Circle, had similar sentiments.
“He’s been a one-man army for a long time,” Murphy said. “Besides, after Hurricane Iniki came through this place, the Outdoor Circle planted all these trees, and now it’s time they need some pruning. It’s not nice to just plant the trees and let someone else do all the work.”
That led Murphy to contact Beane who has adopted Po‘ipu Beach Park, to coordinate the workday.
Murphy said in addition to the Outdoor Circle volunteers, Beane’s employer, the Marriott Waiohai, sent volunteers. She added that Bob French and Dave Boucher of Brennecke’s agreed to provide lunch for the workers following their morning toil.
Workers showed up well before the crowd of beachgoers, and among those who turned out, Millie Johnston said she had on two shirts — one as a park volunteer and the other as a monk seal watch monitor.
“We had five seals on the little island, yesterday,” Johnston said. “And one momma looks like she’s ready to give birth. Today, there’re just a male and a female so I have time to check in volunteers. But I need to be close to the table so I’m just painting the pavilion.”
Murphy said the plan was to paint the picnic tables, prune back some of the trees in the park, rake and pick up the ironwood seed pods, and do general maintenance. The hum and growl of power washers cleaning the restrooms completed the symphony of yellow-shirted volunteers’ banter.
Kim Lucas of the Po‘ipu Beach Resort Association showed up ready to work with her rake, and among the workers, Diann Hartman lost little time introducing herself to the group.
Hartman is a new arrival at the Grand Hyatt Kaua‘i Regency where she joins its public relations office.
“This is a nice way for me to meet some of the people in the community,” Hartman said while lugging a bagful of debris to the dumpster across the road.
Brady said this event worked out so the Marriott Waiohai will be doing this type of work twice a year.
“I live in Kapa‘a, but I spend more time down here than at Kamalani, so I come to help,” said Roddy Ganiron, a Waiohai employee who was busy power sanding a picnic table in preparation for painting.
That chore was being done by his daughter Brittney Ganiron and some of the other children of Waiohai employees.
“This is a good service project,” said Auika Muragin, a senior at Kaua‘i High School. “You need to have service projects on your application when you apply for scholarships, so when my mom told me about this, I thought it would be a nice thing to do.”
Auika’s mom Sandy is an executive administrative assistant at the Marriott Waiohai and was busy with her daughter at one of the picnic tables that needed a fresh coat of paint.
“It is great that not only adults came, but also the children,” Auika said. “Everyone is very friendly and help each other complete tasks. It is great to see different people coming together for one common goal — to preserve the beach.”
Brady said, “When we come back the next time, we’ll see if we can talk some of our owners to join us. That would be fun.”
Before the work was done, Kaua‘i mayor Bryan Baptiste dropped in to thank the volunteers for their efforts.
“Although the park still needs a lot of work, what the people did today is a start towards something great,” Auika said. “The park looks like it’s brand new, and it was a great feeling to be a part of this.”
