On Tuesday, September 10, 2024 Hawaiʻi Community Foundation hosted their 2024 Award Celebration where they honored and congratulated the 2024 Hoʻokele Award Recipients. One of which included our very own Janice Ikeda, Executive Director of Vibrant Hawaiʻi.
The Hoʻokele Award recognizes leaders from the non-profit sector, who are pivotal forces within our community and strive to make Hawaiʻi better. Each recipient receives a grant from Kelvin Taketa Ho’okele Leadership Award Fund to support personal and professional development. Recipients were selected through community nominations, their ability to bring different groups of people together, inspire others, and make an overall impact within Hawaiʻi communities.
We are so proud of Janice for all her hard work and dedication to Vibrant Hawaiʻi as her passions for a resilient community do not go unnoticed.
"Around the time that Vibrant Hawaiʻi was forming, my brother gave me a dried up stick in a mossy pot. I thought it was trash, but he told me, “Don’t worry, it will grow.” Now that stick has grown and multiplied and is a small lo’i that has given huli to many other folks.
Believe it or not, Vibrant Hawaii was once a lot like that stick. A wild vision with no evidence that it would work, no proof that it would grow to what it is today. Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and incredible leaders like Rachel Herrerra Solemsaas, Diane Chadwick, Alapaki Nahale-a, Justin J. Pequeño, Noelani Kalipi, Joel Tan, Sharon Hirota, Ashley Kierkiewicz, Carol Ignacio and others believed.
I am deeply humbled and so honored to be with the community in this moment of our history of Hawai’i. Truly, we each hold one piece that is a part of something bigger.” Janice Ikeda, Executive Director
Mahalo nui to Hawaiʻi Community Foundation for your belief in Vibrant Hawaiʻi and your investment in the communities of Hawaiʻi Island. Hoʻomaikaʻi nui to the other non-profit executives who received the 2024 Hoʻokele Award: Kelly Maluo-Pearson, CEO, Boys & Girls Club of Maui, Maude Cumming, Executive Director, Family Life Center, and Kūhiō Lewis, CEO, Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.
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