Saturday fundraiser to offset new equipment costs

The Kilauea School Parent Teacher Student Association will host a fundraiser Saturday to offset costs for a new playground structure on the school campus.

The event, billed as the Save the Playground, Arts and Music event for adults 21 years old and older, will run from 5 to 11 p.m. at the Church of the Pacific and feature live dance performances, a silent auction, carriage rides and music by several artists, including Sashamon, Jeff Caldwell and Anjela Rose.

Tickets are $25 in advance and can be purchased at the Beauty Bar in Princeville, Hanalei Surf, Healthy Hut, Tamba in Kapaa, The Bistro in Kilauea and at the Kilauea School office. Tickets will also be offered on the day of the event for $30.

Sue Saldana, coordinator for Kilauea School, said the effort to organize the event was prompted, in part, by the state Department of Education’s decision to condemn one of the school’s two playground structures at the beginning of the school year.

Those two structures were built simultaneously in 2006, but Saldana said the condemned one was used by all of the school’s kindergarten through sixth-grade students and deteriorated at a faster rate.

That structure, she said, is now roped off.

Since the playground structure was condemned, she said PTSA volunteers and school faculty members have found other activities for students, such as four square, Hopscotch, and fitness exercises.

“We’re trying to accommodate the students in other ways, but I think it would be much more fun if we had another structure,” Saldana said.

Details weren’t available Monday on what type of playground equipment the school would like to have, but Saldana said school administrators want the new structure to be geared toward kindergarten and first-grade students.

Individuals unable to attend the event but wanting to donate may send a check payable to the Kilauea School PTSA to 2440 Kolo Road in Kilauea.

Information: Padilla, 651-3959