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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, September 22, 2003

Guard program challenges teens to succeed

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

The boys of 2nd Platoon stood at parade rest yesterday with sweat dripping from their faces and the remnants of weeds hanging from their work gloves as they ended a morning clearing a Waikiki wetland.

Participants in the Hawai'i National Guard's Youth Challenge Academy are no strangers to hard work.

Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

The labor left them hot and dirty, but grinning.

"It feels good," said Daryl Feagiai, a 17-year-old member of the Hawai'i National Guard's Youth Challenge Academy.

The work rooting out invasive species from a little-known, 2-acre patch of wetland on the edge of Kapi'olani Park was just one of the community service projects for the academy, which helps 16- to 18-year-old at-risk youths earn their high school diplomas.

About 123 boys and girls spend five months living under the direction of the National Guard at the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station, where they learn discipline and respect for themselves and others.

Yesterday, the interaction they had with outsiders was filled with a heavy dose of "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" as they made room for 'ae'ae and other native plants. The teens stood quietly as they got instructions from their National Guard sergeants, responding with shouts of "hoo-ah!"

"They did an absolutely admirable job," said Michelle Matson, the founder and coordinator of the effort to restore the Kaneloa Natural Habitat and Wetland Restoration Project, which sits hidden away behind the Waikiki Shell. "They're very respectful, very polite. And they're very proud of the work they did."

The work of the Youth Challenge Academy is part of a two-year effort to preserve what Matson calls "a window to the past."

The patch of wetland represents old Waikiki's history as a wetland ecosystem. And when the boys finished their three-hour task — the girls of 3rd Platoon had other chores — brackish water flowed back into the area, just as it has for centuries.

"Waikiki was swamps and duck ponds long ago," Matson said. "It's actually a drainage area, but it is susceptible to tidal action."

The boys sweated in camouflage pants, military-style boots and gray T-shirts with the phrase "Attitude Motivation Dedication are the Keys to Graduation" printed on the back.

They also wore "Hawaii Challenge" baseball caps in a color that 17-year-old Benjamin Iosefa described as "black but very dirty."

Iosefa took a break from pulling weeds and hauling "whatever" to a trash bin to consider the work done by himself and 90 others striving for high school diplomas.

"It's hard," Benjamin said. "But it's fun."

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