Mural depicts Manoa life
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
Inside the new Manoa gym, encircling the inside double doors and the side walls, a new mural has taken shape showing the sun shining above the green mountains, the valley's famous 100-foot waterfall leading to a stream filled with fish, children playing sports in the park and senior citizens working in the community garden.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
The mural is the artistic vision of what three Girls Scouts saw as they grew up in Manoa Valley. The mural, which has taken months to plan, design and paint, is being done as their Gold Project, the final service project for the girls as they enter a new phase of their lives.
A mural at the new Manoa District Park gym depicts life in Manoa Valley as three Girl Scouts experienced it growing up. The teens, Kelli Yoshimura, Chelsea Iwami and Irene Kern, from left, designed the mural as a community service project.
Chelsea Iwami, 15, Irene Kern, 15, and Kelli Yoshimura, 16, are close friends and members of Troop 182, having joined the Girl Scouts as Brownies in elementary school.
Similar to the Boy Scouts well known Eagle Project, the Gold Project is the highest award a Girl Scout can obtain. The purpose of the project is to plan and execute a service project that will make the community a better place to live.
"It is important to us for the mural to be in Manoa Valley because we all live in Manoa and have graduated from Noelani Elementary School," said Iwami, a sophomore at Maryknoll School. "This mural will liven up the Manoa community through art and bring together the Girl Scouts of the Manoa and Punahou communities that have volunteered to help paint our mural."
A blessing and dedication ceremony will be held at 5:30 p.m. today in the gym.
The girls started planning and designing the project last September. Hundreds of hours of labor and about $2,000 have been invested into the project with the help of their parents, many other scouts and donations and support from area businesses, schools and the park staff.
Since January, they have been working every Sunday — sanding, creating a grid pattern and transferring the design onto the walls. The big push came this week, to finish all the painting during spring break when parents had time to help.
"Since they grew up in Manoa they wanted to do something to give back," said Catherine Iwami, Chelsea's mom and a troop leader. "We are all very proud they have come this far."
If you look closely, you will see a gecko on a tree, a duck family near the stream, a happy face spider in the grass and even park director Howard Yoshioka's golf cart. The girls themselves are represented in the mural as three busy bees.
"I've been playing sports here all my life," said Kern, a sophomore at Punahou School. "I've never really done anything to contribute back to this park so I thought this was a really nice idea. I hope people see the work put into it and realize what a beautiful community this is."
Yoshimura said the project has taught her patience and time management.
"Those are the two things I think you need to paint a mural and have community involvement," said Yoshimura, also a Punahou sophomore. "I hope people appreciate the community more because of it."
Park director Yoshioka said the girls worked hard to make sure they had permission to do the project and have brought together a lot of people to make it happen.
"It will be a great addition to the park," Yoshioka said. "Every time I look at it I see something I didn't see before. I'm very proud of them."
Reach James Gonser at 535-2431 or at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.
