Pa‘ia Youth & Cultural Center Raising Tomorrow’s Leaders, Today Susun White was ready to hop in the water for a quick swim in Pa‘ia Bay when a young boy warned her against it. “He told me I shouldn’t swim out very far because of the sharks,” says White. “I could sense his apprehension, so I hung back to talk story with him for a bit instead.” As they walked along the beach, talking about how there wasn’t much to do for kids raised in the small, sleepy North Shore town, a burned-down building caught their attention. The pair went in to investigate further. “I learned that the building was a former plantation house that a group of locals were leasing from Alexander & Baldwin so they could open it up to kids,” says White, who had always dreamed of starting a youth center. Compelled to action, she volunteered to write grant applications for the newly founded Pa‘ia Youth & Cultural Center (PYCC) to repair the building and fulfill their vision of creating a safe haven for the local youth. Twenty five years later, White is still applying for grants, talking story with inquisitive kids, and finding ways to improve upon that old plantation house that is now home to all the center’s offerings, including a skate park, cafe, and youth radio station, as well as her office. “We provide the kids with a wide variety of activities, and because we’re located right next to the ocean, a lot of our facilities and equipment require constant maintenance,” says White, who transitioned from volunteer to Executive Director sometime not long after that walk on the beach with the young boy who became one of PYCC’s first members.
“Fortunately, we the community and some very generous donors help with funding.” Last year PYCC was awarded close to $60,000 from various funds at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation, the majority of which were FLEX Grant funds, or unrestricted grants awarded exclusively to high-performing nonprofits to use as they need. White says most of that funding was allocated toward outfitting their multimedia lab with the latest and greatest technology to teach their kids new skills in a rapidly changing world. “We try to incorporate the things that we think are going to both interest kids and give them a leg up down the road,” she says. White’s got her eyes on the future as well, and she sees expansion on the horizon. She’s hoping to secure enough funding and partnerships this year to construct a second facility nearby. It’ll house new programs and activities, she says, but will have the same character and charm of the original plantation home she and the young boy stumbled upon a quarter of a century ago. “The kids really like the feeling of having a home away from home,” she says. “So that’s what we’re going to build.” The spark of an idea and new friends to see it through … That’s the big promise of little things.
“We attract kids from every economic and cultural sector and they make lifelong friendships with people they would have otherwise never met.” – Susun White
DID YOU KNOW: Over $19 million in grants have been awarded to Maui County nonprofits from funds at the Hawai‘i Community Foundation in the past six years. To learn how you can transform your generosity into lasting change, please visit:
HawaiiCommunityFoundation.org