A KORE volunteer helps a disabled young man enjoy the surf. Photo by Pamela Varma Brown
One Saturday morning each month at beautiful Hanalei Bay on Kauai, autistic children and adults, people in wheelchairs, stroke and other brain injury survivors are safely escorted into the ocean by an army of volunteer lifeguards, firefighters and other experienced watermen and women. As participants ride waves into shore with volunteers at their sides, their thousand-watt smiles beam their joy to be alive.
Kurt Leong’s passion for surfing led him to co-found the Kauai non-profit organization Kauai Ocean Recreation Experience (KORE) in 2009.
Kurt Leong: I knew surfers would want to help other people experience the ocean and the good that it does a body, soul and mind. We wanted to spread that feeling to people who haven’t surfed before or who used to surf and can’t anymore.”
It saves your soul when you surf. It gets all the negativity out of your body and mind. I can’t explain it scientifically, but it works. It’s like fishing. It’s good for your mind and soul even when you don’t catch anything.
KORE volunteer Bruce Cosbey, a general contractor, surfer and longtime Kauai resident, has watched the ocean transform people with disabilities. He motions toward an autistic 19-year-old, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with KORE volunteers, looking at photos in a book, laughing, clearly enjoying himself.
Bruce Cosbey: I’ll never forget his first day with us at KORE about six months ago. He was extremely shy, real stand-offish. He didn’t want to be touched. He needed a minimum of 10 to 15 feet space from anybody. One volunteer gently coaxed him in the ocean and on a surfboard. He is now a changed person. Now when you see him get out of a car or off the bus in the morning, he runs to get to us. He’s so fired up. He’s a seal now. He can’t stay out of the water.
A friend of ours who is in his mid-20s is a triple amputee. He likes to come visit our KORE ohana (family) and show everyone how easily he can surf, even without legs and only one arm. He often says, “Impossible is only an opinion, not a fact.” That’s the power of the ocean. It brings it all back.
Read more about KORE in Pamela Varma Brown’s book, “Kauai Stories.” Visit www.korekauai.com
Kauai Ocean Recreation Experience (KORE) volunteers go to great lengths to help people of all abilities enjoy the ocean. Here they lovingly place a paraplegic on a surfboard and will accompany him in the water. Photo by Pamela Varma Brown
Made famous by Elvis and Blue Hawaii, most of us who grew up on Kauai remember Coco Palms as a place where we went for brunch on Sundays after church with our family. We fished for Talapia with bamboo poles as our parents socialized with friends after lunch. We wandered through the maze of coconut groves to the tennis courts where we would spend hours being wildly entertained by the monkeys and peacocks, the residents of Kauai’s only zoo. The tennis courts, the little road that connected the Homesteads to the Wailua Houselots, the little church where Aunty was married, having lunch with the queen of hospitality, Grace Guslander and hearing her stories about running the resort and the history of the property. These are the memories to highlight and share with Kauai keiki. For anyone born after September 11, 1992, the only memories of Coco Palms is that of a deteriorating piece of history.
The mayor added, “I plan to arrange for a community discussion very soon so that we can all envision what the future could hold for this site of such historic and cultural significance. Let’s put our hopes and dreams on the table, and work toward a collective vision of Coco Palms that will do justice to this special place and will result in a community resource of which we can all be proud.”
Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge closed for the final phase of lighthouse restoration
With the recent big screen hits “The Descendents” starring George Clooney and “Pirates Of The Caribbean On Stranger Tides” with Johnny Depp, today’s announcement by Hawaii News Now doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. Hollywood movie scouts may have chosen the Garden Island of Kauai as one of the filming locations for the movie based on the trilogy by Suzanne Collins, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”
We all need to do our part to keep Kauai beautiful. One of our biggest problems on Kauai is trash and what we do with it. Recycling on Kauai is not very convenient, but with a bit of planning you will be contributing to the efforts to keeping Kauai beautiful.
Eco-Tourism is a relatively new concept in the world of tourism, though it’s gaining popularity and for good reason. Eco tourism, or sustainable tourism, is a concept that is began in the 1950’s, but has started to become more popular in the early 1990’s with the upsurging of the planetary green movement. Concentrations on lowering the negative impact of tourism is becoming more and more important as we are starting to see the ramifications on non-renewable, or slowly renewable, resources especially in remote and delicately balanced environments.
Fortunately, the Hawaiian islands and Kauai in particular have a strong community dedicated to Eco-tourism, and the Kauai County Government has formally adopted a Sustainable Tourism Program to better assist the tourism industry in this endeavor. Through this program, businesses are offered encouragement, education, and incentives to find ways to lessen their environmental impact, and offer services and accommodations in an environmentally conscious manner.
As of January 11, 2011 Kauai adopted a law that requires all retail establishments to provide recyclable paper bags or reusable bags to their customers. This will reduce the significant impacts of plastic checkout bags on the environment, which include litter and an increasing burden on our islands landfill and threats to marine life. We encourage all locals and visitors to bring their own reusable bags while shopping.
January 14 ~Olana Farm, Kilauea, Kauai ~
Denevan is also an environmental artist, known for the 