The grant, which covers the first two years of the program, has been awarded to the nonprofit Partners-in-Development Foundation, which is seeking additional funding.

About half the children in foster care are of Native Hawaiian ancestry, said Lillian Koller, director of the state Department of Human Services.

"Over 40 percent of them are placed in homes that are safe but not of the same cultural and ethnic background," Koller said.

Native Hawaiian foster parents already in the system emphasize that they welcome all their children, regardless of race. However, foster dad Dave Dolifka of Aliamanu acknowledged that the adjustment may be easier on the kids if their temporary home feels culturally familiar.

"A lot of times, the parents might not understand how the kid was raised, what food they like to eat, how they live," said Dolifka. He and his wife, Alicia, have two biological children, two adopted children, two stepchildren and three foster children.

The money will go primarily for staffing and other costs for organizing recruitment in communities and easing potential foster parents into the system, said Dean Kauka, a foster parent and kahu of Imiola Congregational Church in Waimea, who has just been named director of the recruitment project.

The hope is that churches and groups in Native Hawaiian communities can be enlisted in providing help to families as well, Kauka said.

"I find that the state is overtaxed," he said. "They get an emergency call and because the system is overtaxed, the state doesn't have the time to give support to the foster families."

The project also aims to work with a minimum of 108 Native Hawaiian families to help them avoid losing their children to foster placement, Koller said.

Adults already dedicated to the cause see the welfare of the children as the bottom-line measure of the program's success. Foster mom Kanani Casey recently took in a non-Hawaiian child and observed that he has a different social style than her own children. Similarly, she said, Hawaiian children probably feel a bit out of their element in non-Hawaiian homes.

"It's not that one way is right and one is wrong, it's just different," Casey said.

But these foster parents all seemed reluctant to make too much of the cultural issue. Kurt and Jolyn Kipapa also said that, while Hawaiian kids might adapt to their family habits a little more readily, their primary concern is the care of all children.

"It's not what race you are," Kurt Kipapa said, "it's the human race."