By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Class starts at 3:30 on Tuesday afternoons, but five kids are there early. They sit on folding chairs in the community center cradling ukulele in their arms, waiting for their teacher to arrive.

For the last three years, the Hawai'i Alliance for Arts Education has provided the 'Ohana Arts program at Kamehameha Homes. Grants from the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i, the Queen Lili'uokalani Children's Center and the Geist Foundation have provided money for classes in visual arts, hula and ukulele. The goals are lofty, but they're also simple: to give each student an opportunity to learn, to grow, to discover and to succeed.

Brother Noland, the famous and beloved musician, is their ukulele teacher. With the kids, his fame and celebrity simply translates into knowledge and experience. He's relaxed and funny, sometimes being the teacher and sometimes being just one of the gang.

Brother Noland spends the first half-hour of class with the beginners while the veterans huddle together to learn new music. The youngest in the class, a kindergartner, focuses all his kindergartner energy on following Noland pick out the notes to "Wipe Out." While Noland is working with the new students, the third-year students learn a whole song, "Pearly Shells" all by themselves — both the picking and the strumming parts. When Noland checks in on them, they play the song just about perfectly.

"You play this for your grandmother," Noland tells them, "she going cry and go, 'Hoo, boy, you soooo good!' " The kids crack up at Noland's Grandmother voice.

The 'Ohana Arts program also offers classes in hula and in visual arts. Examples of art projects decorate the walls of the community center. There are colorful still-life drawings; self portraits inspired by the work of Frida Kahlo, with cats, math problems, ghosts and flowers floating around the children's heads; and huge batik wall hangings of hula dancers. The program isn't labeled as drug-prevention or youth-at-risk intervention or anything like that, but it isn't hard to see that sort of thing as a by-product. The main focus is to provide the opportunity for the kids to experience "the arts as the joyful work of life."

"I watch the students grow in self-esteem and confidence," says Lei Ahsing, Program Coordinator for the Hawai'i Alliance for Arts Education. "You just hope that it carries over to other areas of their lives."

The third-year ukulele students are starting to compose their own pieces now. Noland joins them on the original piece they titled "Sand, Sea and Strings".

"When they first start, we do a lot of call and respond. I tell them me first, you second," says Noland. "Now we're at a point where we can surf together. We can play in tandem."

This year, money for the program came to an end. The Alliance had some additional money to support the program, but for the first time, charged the students (or more correctly, their parents) a fee for classes. It works out to a dollar a class, plus participation in car washes and other money-raisers.

Enrollment is down, says Ahsing, but those who do come to class are there with all their hearts. "It comes down to desire," says Ahsing. "If they can say, 'I know I'm not there yet, but I can learn,' then they keep coming back."

Noland shows his students a new riff. He taps out the rhythm on the floor with his yellow rubber slipper and asks the kids, "You got 'em or you no got 'em?"

The kids answer in unison:

"Got 'em."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.