march • 2020 keiki cover model

Sending a warm Aloha and Mahalo to Kendall Damo-Perez and family for sharing her sweet smile with us this month.

Mom is Imee Damo, PBX operator at Ka‘anapali Beach Hotel, and dad is James Perez, a supervisor at ProPark.

Kendall is three years old, and is happiest when playing with her cousins. She also loves dinosaurs!

Mom shared with us, “Kendall is very sweet, loving and thoughtful. She is energetic and smart, she also loves to sing and dance. Kendall inspires us every day to be more patient and loving.”

grand wailea resort’s art collection tour: experiencing an outdoor museum – in grand style

When Japanese developer Takeshi Sekiguchi began building what’s now known as the Grand Wailea Resort (GWR) in 1989, his vision was to create the world’s #1 art hotel. “Mr. Sekiguchi’s greatest passion is art,” says Michael Gilbert, curator of corporate collections. “His vision was to create an outdoor art museum that happened to have a hotel inside. This property is the result of one man’s dream.”

And Mr. Sekiguchi decided Michael was the man to help him achieve that dream. “I was working for the Four Seasons in Canada, when he contacted me by phone,” Michael recalls. “He asked, ‘How would you like to come to Maui?’ My background was nineteenth-century art curating, and I’m a portrait painter by trade, but I’d done a lot of art restoration. I probably wasn’t the best candidate for the job, but because I have multiple talents, he felt I was the one. So I happily moved to Maui, and have been here ever since. I was present from the very beginning when they were digging the first holes in the ground.”

maui ocean center’s kaho‘olawe exhibit honors the island’s past, present & future

Kaho‘olawe is a sacred island of cultural reverence. Originally known as Kohe Malamalama o Kanaloa, Kaho‘olawe is dedicated to Kanaloa, a Hawaiian god associated with voyaging, the deep sea, and marine life.

Once a center for navigational training, agriculture, and cultural and religious practices, Kaho‘olawe experienced a controversial era of intense U.S. military activity that brought significant destruction to the island. A successful grassroots movement grew in Hawai‘i and reached Washington D.C., resulting in the end to nearly half a century of military operations. This movement ushered in a new era of restoration and healing.