First-of-its-kind facility offers under-resourced youth education and training in the growing green jobs sector, one of the fastest-growing sectors in Hawai‘i’s economy
WHAT: Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center Grand Opening
*This is a free, community event for all ages and will showcase Kupu’s next investment in Hawaii’s youth through a learning center. Kupu’s mission is two-fold: to preserve the land while empowering youth. The organization provides hands-on training in conservation, sustainability, and environmental education for under-resourced young adults, with the goal of fostering our next generation of environmental and cultural stewards.
WHEN: Thursday, March 14, 2019 from 1 to 4 p.m.
WHERE: Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center at the Kewalo Basin
1125 Ala Moana Blvd.
**Parking available at Harbor Master facility next door (map)
VISUALS: Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center – Courtesy G70
Download images HERE
DETAILS: Local nonprofit Kupu invites the public to visit and help celebrate the grand opening of the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center at the Kewalo Basin Net Shed on Thursday, March 14 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Kupu alumni including Justine Espiritu, Grants and Programs Manager for Bikeshare Hawaii, and Maia Mayeshiro, 2017 Miss Hawaii’s Outstanding Teen, will be on hand to talk story and lead walking tours of the new community center to explain how Kupu is transforming lives.
Founded in 2007, Kupu, Hawaiʻi’s leading environmental education non-profit organization, has managed the Net Shed in Kewalo Basin since 2010 for public use as well as use by Kupu’s Hawai‘i Youth Conservation Corps Community Program, which serves under-resourced youth in the community.
With construction beginning in June 2018, Kupu design partner G70 transformed the old Kewalo Basin net shed at the end of the road in Kewalo Basin Harbor. This new facility establishes a piko (center) on O‘ahu with the first-of-its-kind facility for creating leadership in the growing green jobs sector, one of the fastest-growing areas in Hawai‘i’s economy. In addition, it provides a vision and a resource for island and “global island” communities alike to come together to model solutions on how people can thrive while stewarding and positively impacting our natural resources, communities and neighbors for a better tomorrow. The new facility allows Kupu to expand its programs to better equip youth with the skills and heart to lead our state toward a more sustainable future, while benefiting the broader community through its services and engagement opportunities.
Award-winning design firm G70 provided architecture, interior design, civil engineering, and sustainable design services for the new community center. Kupuʻs Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center includes a new commercial kitchen, laboratory facilities, classroom and meeting spaces to support Kupu’s community and culinary programs for youth and young adults. It also provides new and innovative spaces for the community to gather for meetings, educational and volunteer events, exhibitions, and other opportunities to engage in conservation, sustainability, Hawaiian culture and service.
G70 designed the community center to be a place of pu‘uhonua (a place of refuge) that welcomes, cares for, and educates the students and broader community. The facility was designed for multi-use purposes with flexible functionality at the forefront. In addition to a place of learning for under-resourced youth, the center can seat up to 200 people for community events, complete with a 15-foot multi-media screen.
The aesthetic pulls from the original purpose of the building—a working net shed or previously a net drying facility—and upon entering one walks under large nets purposefully hung across the entrance by G70 Artist in Residence Kaili Chun. Kaili notes that these nets engender a sense of interconnectedness amongst the students, their teachers, as well as a connection to Hawaii’s culture and the environment, the backbone of Kupu.
“I wanted to use the nets, which has become a negative, as a more positive approach to engaging the world,” Kaili says. “Multiple systems that we depend on, are integrated with, and necessary are symbolically represented. The systems are connecting to other systems in a variety of different ways.”
The facility also is a model of sustainability, using photovoltaic energy panels to provide net zero energy usage. Kupu’s Community program participants will continue to steward the shoreline and park around the facility.
Major sponsors of the new center include:
• State of Hawaiʻi
• The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc.
• ALTRES
• Ward Village Foundation
• Kamehameha Schools
• G70
• McInerny Foundation
• MacNaughton Foundation
• Atherton Family Foundation
About Kupu
Kupu is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Kupu in Hawaiian means “to sprout, grow, germinate, or increase.” Kupu’s mission is to bring life back to the people, land, and ocean while restoring the larger community for a better tomorrow. Founded in 2007, Kupu provides service-learning programs in industries like conservation, renewable energy, agriculture, and sustainability. Through these initiatives, Kupu aims to teach youth vital work skills as well as leadership, responsibility and learning to serve the community, incorporating vocational training, educational degree achievement and service learning. In 2017, Kupu served 405 participants, engaged around 16,000 volunteers, and provided more than $22 million in benefits to Hawaiʻi through its programs with a 1:3 cost to benefit ratio. This included over 377,000 service hours and more than a $662,000 in college and continued education funds to Hawaiʻi’s youth. For more information, visit kupuhawaii.org.
About G70
An award-winning design firm founded in Honolulu in 1971, G70 (formerly Group 70 International, Inc.) is dedicated to a collaborative approach and committed to design that reflects the community in which the project serves. G70 provides leading-edge creativity for projects for the hospitality, commercial office and mixed use, multi-family housing, education, financial, healthcare and planned communities sectors. The firm offers specialized services including indigenous planning, environmental compliance, strategy, and sustainable development. Meanwhile G70’s commitment to sustainable practices garnered Pacific Business News inaugural “Best in Sustainability” award. For more information on Hawaii’s leading multi-discipline design firm specializing in architecture, planning, interior design, and civil engineering, visit g70.design.
MEDIA CONTACTS/Pang Communications:
Kevin Whitton: Phone: 808.347.5282; [email protected]
Jennifer Pang: Phone: 808.371.2882; [email protected]