It’s like a new virtual Hawaii Catholic high school, imbedded in three — soon to be four — campuses, comprised of a small, but growing, you might say elite, group of students assembled almost by fate, by chance. By a “fluke,” as Sue Ferandin, the executive director of the Augustine Educational Foundation, put it.
They are the PWH Scholars, recipients of a unique scholarship that, with the Augustine Foundation’s help, places them in Catholic schools they otherwise would not have attended. Thanks to some special people who believe in them, their potential is being tapped in new and unexpected ways.
Students like Shawn Borges, the middle son of divorced parents who is now a sophomore at Damien Memorial School.
Shawn’s parents had always wanted him to go to Damien for high school. His father is an active alumnus. His mother, a Sacred Hearts Academy grad, was a Damien cheerleader.
But they figured they couldn’t afford it. Shawn’s parents remained on good terms, but his mother had an added responsibility of three step-children. Shawn had already been accepted by Kamehameha Schools. But he applied at Damien anyway.
The family received an unexpected call-back from Damien’s president Bernard Ho. He told them about the PWH scholarship, suggesting they interview for it.
Just agreeing to the interview was a tough decision, Shawn’s mother Tracy Kalahiki said. If her son was accepted, it would mean turning down Kamehameha, a much larger school with many more resources.
“I prayed really hard about it,” she said, asking God to “slap me in the face with the obvious because I don’t know what to do.”
Something in the interview clicked, and Kalahiki got the “slap” she was hoping for.
“I just took a leap of faith and I did it and he’s never been happier,” she said. “He has so much support. It is such an amazing program.”
Anonymous founder
Shawn’s scholarship comes from the PWH Educational Foundation, a Seattle-based non-profit organization.
PWH’s president Bob Leong was in Hawaii last month touching bases with scholarship recipients and administrators.
“We don’t usually do interviews,” Leong told the Hawaii Catholic Herald, explaining that the founder and initial donor of the foundation wanted to remain anonymous.
The founder, he said had lived part-time on the Big Island and “really loved the people of Hawaii.” He wanted to create a fund that “would provide educational opportunities for young people” after he died.
He was already giving individual scholarships “out of his own pocket” to “various schools” including St. Joseph School in Hilo.
When the donor died a year and a half ago, his foundation began providing larger grants. One went to the Augustine Foundation, the diocesan organization that provides scholarships for Hawaii’s Catholic school students.
“It has developed into such a wonderful collaboration” among the schools, the Augustine Foundation and the recipients and their families, Leong said. “The results have been just stellar.”
He wants the program to expand, which is why he agreed to talk about it.
Many hands make it work
The PWH scholarship program depends on many hands to make it work.
The PWH foundation pays the bulk of the tuition for four years of high school, plus books, uniforms and other expenses. The Augustine Educational Foundation also contributes a share and each family is responsible for $1,000 a year.
You can’t apply for this scholarship. The three participating schools, Saint Francis, Damien Memorial and Sacred Hearts Academy, with help from the Augustine Foundation, choose students from diverse economic, academic and social backgrounds based on potential — not merit or athletics.
The PWH foundation also pays the salary of a counselor or academic coach at each school. Scholarship recipients must participate in individual and family counseling and in group and service activities with the other recipients.
“That is the cornerstone of how we operate,” Leong said. “Everyone has a buy-in. They all take ownership of it. It makes for a better cohesive approach.”
“You can’t just give a kid a scholarship and leave him at the front door and say, ‘Here, go study,’” he said.
“All of our students, they come to school with a lot of other issues that sometimes impede their learning ability. What we want to do is understand that and somehow mitigate some of those issues,” he said. “We try to be there to help to facilitate that process.”
Recognizing talent
Tracy Kalahiki and her son Shawn Borges
Shawn Borges is an artist who works in oils with a palette knife, creating vibrantly colored impressionistic pieces. His talent was recognized by Leong and nurtured at Damien. The foundation takes care of his art fees and bought him a laptop computer.
“I would say Damien made me better at it,” Shawn said. “I always had the ability to draw, but when I came to Damien I started painting. My teacher is a good teacher.”
“He would have got lost at Kamehameha,” Shawn’s mother said. “At Damien everybody knows each other. The teachers know you by name. And he is happy. That makes all the difference in the world as far as his school work is concerned.”
Shawn agreed. “I love being here. I feel at home,” he said.
His mother said he gave his “most prized piece of art” to Leong “to say thank you.”
“That was impressive,” she said. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”
Community service
Scholarship recipient Kacie Kimoto
An important element of the PWH program is community service. Each school organizes one annual service project. All the students from all the schools participate in each event.
“We want to make sure that all of our students learn that, to give back, they need to know that there are other people who need help also,” Leong said.
On the afternoon of Sunday, April 12, the 16 PWH scholars and their parents, their school principals and counselors, the Augustine Foundation staff, diocesan staff members, Leong and assorted others, gathered in the Sacred Hearts Academy cafeteria to prepare for the Academy’s project: serving dinner and providing activities for the children at Honolulu’s Next Step Shelter for homeless families.
They fixed salad, prepared goodie bags and helped Bishop Larry Silva’s cook Judith Harkte transform 200 pounds of ground beef into hamburger stew.
At around 5 p.m., a small caravan of cars made its way from the school to the ocean’s edge in Kakaako to a massive warehouse whose floor is partitioned into a maze of sleeping areas for homeless families.
In one corner of the building, some students set up the buffet dinner line while others created a library corner, handed out goodie bags and played games with the children. One little boy around 5 years old, writing a valentine for his “girlfriend,” asked a volunteer how to spell “love.”
Scholarship recipient Kacie Kimoto, a Damien sophomore, decorated the tiny arms of children with shiny “glitter tattoos.”
Kacie lives in Kalihi, “right around the corner” from Damien. For this non-Catholic with no other connection to the school, living near it seemed like a good reason to apply.
“They said no at first,” said Kacie, 15, who previously attended Moanalua Middle School where her younger sister is a student. “Then someone called my parents back and said this scholarship (program) wanted to interview me.”
“They explained what the scholarship is and who is giving it and what was expected of me,” she said.
Kacie is glad she was accepted. “It’s been fun. It keeps me busy,” she said.
She finds the service projects particularly rewarding.
“It’s opened my eyes a lot, like helping these little kids, seeing what they have to live with and being grateful for what I have,” she said. “I feel I have to give back to help them. They are always so happy when you play with them. They don’t see what they are going through.”
Desire to play football
Shawn Ellis serving dinner at then Next Step Shelter
Shawn Ellis wanted to go to Saint Francis School in Manoa to play football. Other than that, the Ewa Beach boy, the youngest of three brothers and two sisters, had no links to the school.
“It kind of started with Hammerhead Football,” a Ewa Beach sports program for younger kids, said his father Sam Ellis.
For high school, some of Shawn’s teammates were planning to go to Saint Francis, whose emerging division 2 football program practically guaranteed playing time.
But the family knew that finances would be a problem. Sam was off work because of an injury and Shawn’s mother Tammy Ellis was employed part time.
“I knew we couldn’t afford it,” Tammy said. “We weren’t going to go but something told me to just go” and apply.
To their surprise, they were called back.
“They asked Shawn to write a letter as to why he wanted to attend Saint Francis,” Sam said. “They said they would get back to us and that’s when the blessing came.”
“It was a blessing that God gave us this opportunity for Shawn to receive a better education in a religious school, to learn about God and church,” Sam said, adding that it “kind of gets him away from his kolohe friends.”
“He loves this school,” Tammy said. “We’ve seen a big change in Shawn. He smiles a lot. He is more happy.”
“He is more mature,” said Sam. “Instead of being a follower he has become more of a leader, trying to give back.”
Shawn, 16, agreed that the program “helps me to be more open to others and interact with others and be more social.”
He sees the school counselor twice a week. “She keeps us on a straight line,” he said. “She always makes sure we are back on that line. She motivates us a lot.”
Although the work was hard, “it is very rewarding,” Shawn said. “The teachers are more hands on. They take the time to work with you.”
“The best thing is being with your friends every day and being around school,” Shawn said.
Even though it’s not easy getting there. Shawn has to wake up by 4:30 a.m. to catch the city bus for the up to two-hour ride to the campus. He doesn’t get home until 7:30 or 8 at night.
The counselors are crucial
Crucial to the PWH scholarship program are the counselors the foundation provides to guide the progress of the students and their families.
Besides being available on campus, the counselors regularly visit the families’ homes. Leong said it’s an “opportunity to see what is actually going on out there. That portion of the program is very important.”
“We have good counselors out there,” Leong said. He describes them as the “boots on the ground.”
The PWH Foundation hired Elizabeth Vito in 2013 to be the counselor at Saint Francis School.
It was a good fit. She was born in Hawaii and attended Saint Francis.
She went to Northern Arizona and Western New Mexico Universities, earning a degree in counseling. She worked in the mental behavioral health field for about six years on an Indian reservation in Arizona before returning to Hawaii.
“This job opportunity became available and I thought it was perfect because it was my alma mater,” she said.
Vito said she “loves” the home visits. “It was a huge part of my previous experience as a family therapist,” she said.
At school, “I’m there for them and guiding them to make the right choices; and when they fall, I pick them up and back on the right track.”
“I talk to these kids a lot during the day. Some are doing great in academics but have social and emotional struggles,” she said.
“I believe going into the homes and working with the families has a huge impact with the students’ success in academics and just their overall being,” Vito said. “I just don’t watch their academic success, their grades, but everything they do.”
A good vetting process
Although the program is “initially based on need,” Leong said, “families need to buy into the program, they need to understand it, they need to participate, to know what is expected of them.”
But the PWH Foundation doesn’t “micromanage” the selection process, he said. That’s done by the schools’ admission director, counselors and principals.
“I think it is pretty rigorous how they pick these kids and it has been a good vetting process,” Leong said, “so I leave it up to them.”
Karen Muramoto, director of admissions for the all-girls Sacred Heart Academy which has five PWH scholars, finds the candidates for her school.
“I go through a process,” she said. “I talk to counselors, mostly from public middle schools. Some of them I know, some of them I don’t.”
She said the students she selects “have such a willing spirit, they want to learn.”
“They need our mentoring, they need our encouragement,” Muramoto said. “They will do well. We just need to provide them with the support that they need.”
“Some of them are scared; this is a new place,” she said. “They want to be here but they are not used to the rigidity, the schedule, the organization, the time, the homework. But it is just wonderful to see them grow, to become more confident.”
Sacred Hearts Academy head of school Betty White said she likes what the scholarship does for the entire family.
“Because this might be the first generation going to go to college, the family has such pride in them, the family is just so pleased,” she said.
As a result, family members contribute support in many ways, she said. “One auntie will buy her a new computer, another auntie a new pair of shoes,” and so on.
“If nothing else it gives these children hope,” Muramoto said. “If you give a child hope that they will be successful, they will be.”
’Let’s do something’
The PWH scholarship program evolved from scratch in 2012.
“We started initially on the fly,” Leong said. “I came here one day and said, ‘Let’s do something.’”
Two students were quickly recruited for scholarships at Saint Francis School, but they didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, he said.
However, “we learned a lot from them,” he said, leading to a more careful approach.
In its second year, the program added two more schools, Damien and Sacred Hearts, and had nine students and one counselor. This year there are 16 students and three counselors/academic coaches.
St. Joseph High School in Hilo will join the scholarship schools this fall with three PWH students and one academic coach. Additional students to the other schools will bring the total up to 30 students. For the 2016-17 school year, the program projects 42 students.
“The program is really on the right track,” Leong said. “And that is why we want to support it as much as we can.”
Leong said he has noticed the maturing of the students. “I remember a young man who was sullen, wouldn’t look at you, and very seldom spoke. Now we got this guy smiling who has really done exceptionally well for himself. Each school has produced wonderful kids who have really transformed themselves.”
Because some of the students will be the first in their families to go on to college, Leong is exploring ways to extend his program beyond high school.
“We would like to see if we can provide an opportunity for our students to go on if they wish to,” he said. “We want to get them to that point where they can succeed.”
PWH’s present commitment is for four years. But Leong sees the program continuing beyond that, especially if it receives outside help.
“That is part of the challenge,” he said. “In four years, we don’t want to be the only ones out here funding this project. We want to see other communities and community-based people willing to step up. Hopefully, when the word gets out about the program, other people will buy into it.”
Humble and unassuming
Born in Hawaii, Leong himself is a product of local Catholic schools, attending St. Patrick School and Saint Louis High School in Kaimuki in the 1960s.
He did his undergraduate work at Marquette University in Milwaukee and earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin.
Leong worked in Wisconsin for 13 years supervising a county child welfare unit. He now lives in Seattle. Besides managing the PWH Foundation, he describes himself as a private investor. He also spends two months out of the year in the small southeast African country of Malawi managing nutritional, health and sanitation projects he and his wife have developed for the people there. Their work includes the installation of pumps for drinking water, growing quinoa, a nutritious grain, and supporting schools and orphanages.
The PWH Educational Foundation has three other projects on the Mainland similar to Hawaii’s, one for a Catholic school in northern Illinois and two on a smaller scale in central Washington and in Portland, Ore.
Leong’s personal dedication has impressed the Academy’s head of school White.
“Bob is the most humble and unassuming person,” she said. “He takes a personal interest in all the children, he asks about them, he knows them by name.”
“He sits with them and he listens to them. He tries to be involved in all their activities like sports, and he tries to go to all the games,” White said. “If they need a computer, Bob will see that they get it.”
Kacie at Damien also appreciates Leong’s involvement.
“He comes down and does these things with us. It’s good that he gets to see what we have to do,” she said.
Ensuring future participants
Tracy Kalahiki said her son Shawn is motivated not only for his own success, but for the success of the PWH program and future participants.
“This responsibility to be a scholar pushes him to excel, to try his best,” she said, to ensure that the program will be around “to open the doors for future kids.”
She said her son accepts that he is being held to “a higher standard.”
One of those “future kids” is Kalahiki’s younger son Shaden Borges who was invited to be part of the program next school year.
“We are so blessed,” she said. “I see so many kids get lost in the public school system. With the number two child going into Damien we are thrilled, so thankful.”
