In the past five years, since Kamehameha Schools was reorganized under a new board of trustees, the trust has spent $197.8 million on outreach programs in an attempt to extend its reach beyond its three campuses and help far more Hawaiian children.

Under a new strategic plan established in 2001, the money has gone to help pregnant and new mothers, preschool children and public schools, college students and adult dropouts, with some of it spent on non-Hawaiians.

Kamehameha's statistics show it is reaching thousands more children and others than the 5,400 attending school on its campuses, and has already met and exceeded many of its outreach goals for the first five years of the new strategic plan.

And the plan calls for spending $55.2 million this year on outreach — the biggest such annual expenditure thus far and a 50 percent increase since the strategic plan was launched.

Experts say the trust, which has been criticized for failing to reach more of the children Bernice Pauahi's will pledged to help despite its $6 billion in assets, is making up for lost time.

"What most pleases me is the trend over the last few years and the clear new direction this board of trustees is going in terms of serving more children and partnering with the Department of Education and other entities," said Randy Hitz, dean of the College of Education at the University of Hawai'i.

"Using their money to leverage other money and vice versa — that's exactly the right direction to go," said Hitz, who also is a member of a large informal advisory committee for Kamehameha. "They're going to serve a whole lot more kids that way, which is what a foundation of that size should be doing."

But even school officials say it's far from adequate.

"Yes, we are rebuilding our culture and redefining and re-understanding who we are as a native people, and in the process we're rebuilding pride and we're rebuilding dignity," trustee Nainoa Thompson told an emotional crowd of 15,000 at a rally in support of the school last weekend.

"But I say no, it ain't enough," Thompson said.

On Aug. 2 the Kamehameha Schools was dealt a major blow when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the school's policy of preference for Hawaiians for admission to its three campuses violates federal civil rights laws and amounts to racial discrimination.

Kamehameha is appealing the ruling, but many, including Thompson, say the school is at a crossroads as it struggles to educate Hawaiians in the context of rebuilding cultural pride, and overcoming drug abuse, criminal behavior and unhealthy habits.

"It ain't enough until we deal with those who are in poverty," Thompson said.

"Eighty-five percent of our kids are outside of our campuses, so we've got to be there," he said later.

In Kamehameha's most recent annual report, Kamehameha chief operating officer Dee Jay Mailer notes that fulfilling the schools' educational mission "includes easing the financial burden of education for needy families."

One of the school's primary goals is to reach 10,000 keiki from birth to 4 years old by the end of fiscal 2006. But there's still a ways to go to reach the goal.

By the end of last year, the school had served 3,800 pre-schoolers above the 1,500 enrolled in Kamehameha's own pre-schools, which have existed since the 1970s but are being expanded.

With many of the Kamehameha preschools maintaining waiting lists, Kamehameha also now offers tuition scholarships for 345 Hawaiian children annually to attend other preschools.

"Somewhere around 6,000 young ones are born every year just within the Hawaiian community and our preschools are serving around 1,500, so clearly we're not meeting the need," said Charlene Hoe, who heads outreach programs for Kamehameha.

"Even statewide there clearly are not enough spaces available for all children in the 3- and 4-year age group. There's one space for every two children in general across the state. But in some of our communities it's as scarce as one space for every 15 children."

Jaylene Lum said she felt lucky to get a space in Kamehameha's Waimanalo preschool for her daughter, Jaymie, who is now a 7-year-old in second grade. "It was perfect. It got her ready for school and helped her socialize," Lum said.

And now she's grateful that her 4-year-old, J.C., is enrolled.

"It's so close," said Lum of the school that provides priority to homestead families such as hers. "It provides more for her than I'm able to."

Said CEO Mailer: "The preschools are run with the same criteria that we run our campuses. There are Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians who attend the preschools ... There is no restriction on the funding to the non-Hawaiians. They get the same amount of funding as the other students are getting."

Jan Dill, who heads the nonprofit Partners in Development, would like to see Kamehameha do more to address the needs of families.

"We're doing a good job with school readiness and tutu skills, but the larger issue is the whole family function — to bring families together to sort through education issues, employment issues, health issues and family dysfunction issues," said Dill, whose nonprofit works in many poverty-stricken rural communities and is partnering with Kamehameha to expand the Tutu and Me Traveling Preschool to Moloka'i and the Big Island.

"It's absolutely essential that the Hawaiian community make a major investment in the education and preparation of zero to 8-year-olds. It will transform our community," Dill said.

To that end, Kamehameha launched a new program in January to help new families bond and has reached 50 families so far.

Piloted in Waimanalo, the Hi'ilani Early Childhood Collaborative drew new mothers and their babies, including Li'i Wright and her 9-month-old son, Reynold Keli'iholokai Makua. The mothers learned how to give their infants Hawaiian massage — lomilomi — in six sessions over three weeks.

For Wright it was an experience that brought her whole family closer and created an evening ritual of massage and togetherness before both the baby and her 2-year-old, Samuel Ka'iliuli Makua, drift off to sleep.

"He'll come up to me and say 'Mom, lomilomi,'" said Wright of Samuel, who joined her for the classes and practiced massage on a doll.

"It calms him down. He just lays there and he looks at me and we talk, and he eventually falls asleep," Wright said. "He likes that closeness."

On the other end of the spectrum, $20 million in outreach funding in 2004 went to financial aid and scholarships for about 7,750 recipients. In addition, the school is serving more than 27,000 people through a variety of extension education and had extended its reach to 117,000 adults in the past five years for lifelong learning programs, according to the 2004 annual report.

"We're trying to be very focused in our approach to make the greatest impact," Mailer said. "Beyond that we want to support the public school system, so we're working with the Department of Education and charter schools to see how we can supplement their efforts even more."

The school is already supporting students in the public schools through reading programs for students in kindergarten to third-grade, tutoring and enrichment programs for those in middle and high school, and scholarships to about 2,000 Hawaiian public and private high school graduates annually.

Many of Kamehameha's outreach programs were canceled by former trustees in the mid-1990s. But now the trust is preparing another set of five-year projections and goals through 2011, hoping to reach more people.