KAPA‘A — When the Kapa‘a High School Hawaiian immersion class discontinued its traditional imu service, Kapa‘a girls basketball coach Gary Maguire was only concerned about where his Thanksgiving turkey was going to be done. “My wife, Terry, suggested the girls
KAPA‘A — When the Kapa‘a High School Hawaiian immersion class discontinued its traditional imu service, Kapa‘a girls basketball coach Gary Maguire was only concerned about where his Thanksgiving turkey was going to be done.
“My wife, Terry, suggested the girls basketball team do the imu service as a fundraiser,” Gary said during the championships of the Kapa‘a Warrior Basketball Tournament. “So, we got to make money, the girls get to learn about the Hawaiian culture, and I got my Thanksgiving turkey cooked.”
Christmas Eve marked the second time this year the Kapa‘a girls basketball program embarked on offering the imu service to the community.
“This is my first time,” said Dr. Paul Esaki, a Kapa‘a football team doctor. “But it’s a good community service because people don’t need to worry about cooking their food. They bring it in the evening and pick it up the next morning.”
A steady stream of customers braved the Christmas Eve showers to drop off their servings of turkey, ham or pork as members of the varsity squad processed orders at the lower campus.
“This is a learning experience,” Terry said, thankful for the quick tent which offered respite from the gentle rain. “During Thanksgiving, it poured and we had to move everything to the gym. I was stuck down here because someone had to tell the customers to pick up at the gym.”
Gary said Lenny Rapozo, the director of the county’s Parks and Recreation and a basketball official, had a portable refrigeration unit the girls could rent to keep customers’ orders refrigerated until the imu was ready.
“We’ve only done it once, but I think we’ve got the bugs worked out,” Terry said. “The imu crew started the fire early and had everything covered by the time the rain started. During the Thanksgiving service, we only had one piece unaccounted for, but that got sold.”
William Aki, of the Warriors’ coaching staff, used a propane burner to fire up the keawe and pine logs which heated the stones for the imu.
“Keawe is the best because it burns hot,” Aki said. “Only problem is there are not many keawe trees on this side. Our Tongan parents who are tree trimmers had to bring all the logs from their yard. We use the pine because it’s also pretty hot and we don’t have that much keawe.”
Gary said for Thanksgiving, the girls sold about 75 tickets, and leading into Thursday, estimated they had about 150 orders coming in.
“That’s pretty good,” Aki said. “We can still use only one imu because this one can handle up to 200 packages.”
Besides providing a community service for people desiring to have their holiday roasting done in an imu, the program also develops team bonding because the girls work with each other to process customer orders from accepting the pre-packaged meats, storing, keeping track of pieces and finally, letting the cooked pieces go.
The Kapa‘a girls basketball team takes the floor Tuesday, when it travels to the Kaua‘i High School gym for the first Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation game of the season.
Junior varsity tips off at 5:30 p.m., followed by the varsity matchup.
