June 12 – Kaiser HS Hedge Replanting

Submitted by Lion Ken Nishibun

On Saturday morning June 12, fourteen Lions and prospective Lions rolled up their sleeves to tackle a very labor-intensive Kaiser High School Hedge Removal and Replanting Project. Two pickup trucks, a hefty chain, reciprocating saws, picks, shovels, rakes, a power washer and a lot of muscle power were the order of the day.

Fronting Kaiser’s Administration Building, twenty spiral gardenia plants that were deeply rooted and probably over 40 years old, were yanked out with a chain connected to President Eric’s pickup truck. Sounds easy enough, but of course there were a few stubborn ones that needed picks and reciprocating saws cutting deep roots to finally do the trick. The plants were then sawed up into manageable pieces for the janitors to dump into the refuse bins.

Twenty Golden Eldorado plants that were purchased and picked up the day before using Lion Tom’s truck, were then planted using a load of top soil and compost mix transported by Lion Eric. Finally, the entry, sidewalk and steps were power-washed to give the entire area a gleaming finish.

This was another joint project of the Hawaii Kai Lions and the Kaiser High School PTSA. They provided the funding of $418.58 to purchase the plants and top soil-compost mix and Lions provided the muscle power courtesy of Silvia Ardila, Kendrick Chang, David Iwana, Alvin Hayashibara, Eric Kimura, John Kratochvil, Walter Kuroiwa, Eric Kvick, Frances Lum, Patrick Lynch (prospective member), Ken Nishibun, Tom Ono, Cameron Sato (prospective member), and Appan Subramanian. Vice Principal Dana Takahara Diaz, who was at our project site expressed the School’s appreciation on behalf of Principal Justin Mew for the tremendous support of the Hawaii Kai Lions throughout the years and especially during these difficult COVID times.