WAIANAE, Hawaii — The Spectrum Community Center Assist program sponsored its first community center rebuild in the state at Alu Like, Inc.’s Waianae center Saturday morning. Nearly 35 Spectrum employees and community volunteers gathered to make a difference for the nonprofit organization that has helped nearly 1.2 million people over its 47-year history.
The day started with a blessing of the property, of the work to be done and of the volunteers who came to spend their morning helping to get the community center set up to help the surrounding community.
Painting the exterior, pulling weeds, putting in soil for a small garden, cleaning out the storage room, and setting up newly purchased tables, office chairs and laptops all needed to be done within three hours.
“This is about a bigger program for us at Charter Communications,” said Vice President of Community Impact Rahman Khan to the group of volunteers. (Charter Communications is the parent company of Spectrum News.) “Our role in the company is to improve the communities where our customers and employees live and work. We’re going into 100 communities across the nation. We’re in 41 states; we’re in cities everywhere. We have 99,000 employees, but how do we get these 100 communities? We look at where the need is and where there is a trusted local partner in the community. Hawaii became an important part of this list of communities.”
“We started up this program, the Spectrum Community Center Assist program, where we help job centers. This program is about providing opportunities, resources, for organizations like Alu Like to the tune of $30 million, the largest philanthropic effort ever in the history of Charter,” Khan said.
Khan and his team said they started the Spectrum Community Center Assist program in September 2021 as a way to make a tangible, meaningful difference in the communities. “We didn’t just want to write a check and go home. We wanted to be really involved, engaged, and get our employees involved and engaged … helping people get the job skills and, ultimately, jobs, so they can help themselves. That was a big, big rationale behind it.”
This is the program’s 19th community center out of 100, and the first in Hawaii. Khan said they’ve also provided the nonprofit with 50 laptops for their program and one gigabyte of internet service for the next four or five years at no cost. “We rarely do that, but that was important to us.”
Maile Shimabukuro, state senator for District 21 that encompasses Kalaeloa to Kaena Point, was also a part of the event. She shared her thoughts with Spectrum News before heading to a community Halloween Bash.
“It means the world because it is just amazing how many lives this organization has touched. So many people … to see them today, they’re doing great. And if it wasn’t for Alu Like, they would not have gotten off their feet and not been able to turn their lives around.
“Alu Like puts themselves in some of the most rural, difficult areas that don’t even have power. And I think it’s just so important that they’re showing people even in the most far-reaching areas, that there’s someone who cares, there’s a helping hand out there. You haven’t been forgotten just because you’re so far away from an urban center.”
Alu Like, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that opened its doors in 1975 as N.O.W., New Opportunities Working. It was later renamed Alu Like, which means “striving together,” by renowned and beloved Hawaiian scholar, author, composer, hula expert and educator, Mary Kawena Puku‘i.
Aware of the challenging work ahead for the nonprofit, Kupuna Edith Kanaka‘ole bestowed the motto, “E alu like mai kākou, e nā Ōiwi o Hawai‘i,” “Let us work together, natives of Hawai‘i,” upon the small grassroots nonprofit.
“If you look at the jobs today, you cannot even get a job at 7-11 unless you have some kind of technology, everything’s computerized,” said Cash-Kaeo, president and CEO of Alu Like, Inc. “Many of our participants are not tech savvy, or they don’t have access to technology to learn. So this center is a blessing because now they can come and have access to computers; our staff can teach them how to use it. It’s learn as you go.”
She said people have come to the nonprofit multiple times over the years. “We may have a mom who is pregnant and she comes for a prenatal. When she has her baby and is ready to enter the workforce, she may come back. And depending on what she wants to do, it might be sending her to trade school, getting her skills. And then they come back to us when they’re elders.
“So we have people who came to Alu Like in the beginning. It’s been 37 years, and now they’re elders. We have congregate meal sites where we pick them up and they come. We teach them something about nutrition, safety and then they have lunch. And they have fun together, they play instruments, sing, dance. So we provide services from womb to tomb.”
Cash-Kaeo says that the community center is also used by a multitude of programs and other community organizations. She is hoping to hire staff in order to keep the community center open at night.
Through today’s volunteer effort, Cash-Kaeo said, “I thank Spectrum/Charter for not only the opportunity to expand our services with their program grant, but for the computers and the facelift of our office. I don’t know if they realize how many doors of opportunity they’ve opened.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article has been updated with an addition to Mr. Rahman Khan's quote. Oct. 30, 2022