Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 6, 1 June 2010 — OHA program offers educational assistance for Native Hawaiian keiki [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

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OHA program offers educational assistance for Native Hawaiian keiki

Deadline to apply is June 30

By Jennifer Armstrong KaWai Ola

Times are tough and edueational priorities often suffer because of hard eeonomie times. To help, OHA is eommencing the second year of a pilot program designed to offer hnaneial assistance to qualified Native Hawaiian families with keiki K- 1 2 attending a private school. Kāko'o Ho'ona'auao K-12 Family Education Assistance Pro-

gram, whieh is administered by Chaminade University, awards up to $5,000 to qualified Native Hawaiian families with significant educational costs. Kāko'o Ho'ona'auao means "to support enlightenment through education." OHA launched the program in 2009 and awarded more than $500,000 to 172 Native Hawaiian families for the 2009-10 school year. "We're looking forward to another successful year in helping Native Hawaiian keiki with their educational costs," said John Alamodin, OHA's Transitional Assistance Program Manager. "Private school education is unaffordable for most Hawai'i residents, especially Native Hawai-

ians. This educational assistance helps ease the hnaneial burden for these families." Applicants must be a parent or caregiver of a child attending a private school in grades K-12 or some other specialized academic program in Hawai'i whieh incurs significant eeonomie costs for the family. Applicants must live on or be eligible to live on Hawaiian homelands, demonstrate hnaneial need and register with OHA's Hawaiian Registry Program. (To register, eall 594-1914.) Preference will be given to the most eeonomically disadvantaged families. Applications will be accepted through June 30 and awards will be dispersed in late 2010 for the 2010-11 school year. To download an applieahon,

apply online or for more information, visit www.chaminade.edu/ oha or www.oha.org/edu. Or, eontact Trenton Payne at 735-4706 or trenton.payne@chaminade.edu, or Kauikeaolani Daunie at 594-1961 orkauikeaolanid@oha.org. ■

Paren1"s and caregivers of Native Hawaiian keiki grades K-1 2 may apply for finaneial aid through 0HA's Kako'o Ho'ona'auao program. Eligibility requirements apply. - Photo: KWO Pile