PHILANTHROPY
It’s All AboutYOU Supporting the West Hawai‘i community
A grant from the West Hawai‘i Fund helped the West Hawai‘i Community Health Center to expand its services in Kealakehe to include dental care for keiki up to 18 years of age.
A
lfred “Hartwell” Carter became manager of Parker Ranch in 1937, following in the footsteps of his father, A.W. Carter. Hartwell and his wife Becky were “very generous people who readily gave to the community,” recalls Bonnie Rice, family friend who remembers touring Parker Ranch with the Carters when she was just a girl. After Hartwell died, Bonnie, who had since become a
trust officer on the Big Island for First Hawaiian Bank, told Becky about the West Hawai‘i Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, which was started in 1990 by a small group of residents who wanted to create a permanent charitable resource for communities in the region. “Becky wanted to leave a legacy that would honor Hartwell and she liked that it would stay in the local community.”
She also liked that a group of local community leaders served on the fund’s advisory committee: “Becky cared that grants were made on a local basis by local people and could respond to changing needs,” said Rice, who is now principal of The Rice Partnership, on O‘ahu. Geographic funds, like this one, enable multiple donors to pool their contributions to benefit a specific location that is meaningful to them. Over
the last 26 years, the West Hawai‘i Fund has been able to distribute numerous grants to nonprofits serving the region, many of them “FLEX” grants that provide unrestricted funding. Though both Carters have passed away, the Hartwell and Rebecca Carter Fund at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation is still contributing to the community they loved so much. “And that,” said Bonnie Rice, “would really please them.”
Geographic funds enable multiple donors to pool their contributions to benefit a specific loaction that is meaningful to them.
> Did you know: Since 1990, the West Hawai‘i Fund at HCF has distributed over $1.3 million in grants to nonprofits serving west Hawai‘i Island.
L e a r n h o w i t ’s a b o ut you - H awaiiC ommunityFoundation. org/you
Founding members and Advisory Committee members of the West Hawai’i Fund (L to R): Gloria Blum, Virginia Isbell, Ikaika Hauanio, Kawehi Inaba, Georgine Busch, Bill Wong, Darl Gleed, Alison Leong, Rebecca Transue, and Barbara Kildow