Inaugural awards laud nonprofit work

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

David Nakada was a bit of a slacker during his senior year at Kaimuki High School in 1969 and was headed toward a tour of duty in Vietnam when a school counselor stepped in.

David Nakada, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Hawai'i, and Jo-Ann Ridao, managing director of Lokahi Pacific, look over a wooden paddle that each received at the inaugural Ho'okele Awards at the Pacific Club. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Somebody took a chance on me," said Nakada, 50. "I just hope I don't let the community down."

Nakada was one of four local nonprofit leaders who were each awarded $10,000 yesterday for their work — from providing jobs and homes on Maui, to getting children along the Wai'anae Coast in touch with their cultural roots, to prepping public school students for college — and for running the Boys & Girls Club of Hawai'i.

The first Ho'okele — or "steersman" — Awards were designed by the Hawai'i Community Foundation to encourage leaders who get into nonprofit work with good intentions but tend to burn out from stress and frustration, said Kelvin Taketa, president and chief executive of the foundation.

"There are real heavy burdens that people in the nonprofit sector carry," Taketa said at the awards ceremony at the Pacific Club. "You start as a zealot, as someone who deeply cares about what you do in the community, and all of a sudden you're managing people and trying to meet payroll. And you've got to worry about job descriptions and all of the things that you never thought about before. ... That combines to create a very short life cycle for people in this field."

Along with Nakada, money and a miniature koa paddle were awarded to:

• Andrew Aoki, 33, a graduate of 'Iolani School, Stanford University, University of Michigan Law School and Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, who co-founded College Connections Inc. in 1999. The organization has helped more than 500 high school students from 25 schools statewide prepare for college and college entrance exams.

In his acceptance speech, Aoki thanked several nonprofit organizations, including the YMCA, where he learned everything from volleyball to being a camp counselor to writing budgets — all before age 18.

• Eric Enos, 53, a native Hawaiian and lifelong Wai'anae resident, who helped found the Cultural Learning Center at Ka'ala in 1978, which runs native plant nurseries, a program for fourth-graders and the Hawaiian Studies Center at Wai'anae High School.

"This is for all of the unsung heroes who do community work," Enos said. "I just carry the paddle. Everyone else made the canoe, made the sail, provided the food that helped to grow the trees and protected the forest."

• Jo-Ann Ridao, 54, who has spent 30 years with Lokahi Pacific, which has created hundreds of jobs that provide jobs and transitional housing on Maui. Ridao has helped add to the number of rental properties, implemented a first-time homebuyers program and increased loans to small businesses.

Ridao grew up on the Wailuku sugar plantation where Japanese and Filipino neighbors helped watch over her and her siblings. "This is how I give back," she said. "But the reward of working in the nonprofit world is invaluable."

Most of the winners said they were considering giving their $10,000 to their communities in some form.

That kind of instinct is hard to break for people dedicated to nonprofit organizations, Taketa said. He strongly encouraged them to use the money instead for personal or professional development, "to kind of hit the reset button.

"These are people who spent their whole lives selflessly giving back to their community and their first reaction is to give the money back," Taketa said. "We're saying your own development and happiness is important. Use the money on yourself."

Reach Dan Nakaso at 525-8085 or dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.