Building dreams as only winners can Story and Photos By Malia Zimmerman
Though she ran Winners' Camp while raising her son and running her own business, Hawaii Study Tours, the camp flourished each year, helping 8,000 teenagers to date. But it soon became apparent the Winners' Camp would need a permanent home. Up until now, the camp has relocated from place to place. On a mission and determined to make Winners' Camp permanent by finding it a home, Gregoire searched the island for that place using the philosophy of FOCUS "Follow One Course Until Successful" that she teaches young participants. "I wanted to leave a strong foundation for Winners' Camp. In the past we've had to set up and tear down and set up and tear down each time." The Kamehameha Schools, with its new mission "Education is Our Business," awarded Winners' Camp a 40-year license to use the three-and-a-half acre piece of land located on top of Kamehame Ridge in Hawaii Kai. That in exchange for its student participation in the camps. There is just one challenge: that property, a former Nike Missile installation and Witness protection location, has been not taken care of for some time. The three buildings are crumbling and cracking and covered in graffiti. Garbage is piled high and old tires and rusted pieces of metal are dumped throughout the area. The grass has grown chest high. And the clean-up job and cost falls into the lap of Winners' Camp and trusty volunteers. "It looks like people used this site for their own personal dumping ground," Gregoire says scanning the area. But dumping ground or not, Gregoire is elated. Behind the graffiti covering the walls, she sees her vision, her dream for permanence, becoming a reality. "Many people can't see the potential here. I can see it very clearly," she says confidentially as she walked through a deteriorated building that will become one of the main meeting areas of the camp. One of her volunteers was painting the inside of one of the buildings with a roller and a pan. Despite needing to raise nearly a million dollars to restore the site, Gregoire is firm in her goal to hold the first camp in August. December 16, Winners' Camp broke ground on the site, and since, volunteers from the U.S. Military, Rotary, Elks, Winners' Camp graduates and local churches have volunteered with the clean-up effort. Some of the Small Business Hawaii members who have stepped up to help Winners' Camp, including City Mill and Stan Snodgrass. But much more help is needed, including volunteers to help paint, cut the grass, clean up the garbage and haul the waste out of the area. She also needs donations of cash, furniture, flooring, kitchen supplies and community leaders and athletes willing to work with the kids during the camps. Once the site is completed, Winners' Camp can be held at least 6 times a year for teenagers and eventually camps will be offered for children from age 7 to 12. "We are finding we need to work with children at a much earlier age now. They need protection sooner. They are offered designer drugs at early ages and are hooked on the first try and this leads to violence," Gregoire says. Gregoire, who grew up in a series of abusive foster homes, says it is important to enhance the lives of children, give them the tools to make the right choices and to stay strong and on the right path, no matter what experiences their lives might bring. "We need to help the children with leadership potential meet their potential. It is fine to focus on troubled kids, but someone has to help those who are the leaders of the future." For more information call 366-8008, or visit the Winners' Camp website at www.winnerscamp.com
 It's time to privatize the state hospital By State Rep. Charles K. Djou (R-47th District) I sent a letter to the Governor last month calling upon the administration to again consider privatizing the Hawaii State Hospital, located in my district. Under State government control, the Kaneohe State Hospital has been unable to effectively provide adequate mental services to patients or ensure the public's safety. To better manage the State Hospital and deal with its pressing problems, the governor should consider using the powers granted to him under the recently enacted privatization law. The administration briefly considered closing the State Hospital in 1999, but the Legislature timidly rejected the idea. Many states effectively use privatization as an effective tool to service the mentally ill population of their communities. The time has come for Hawaii to closely examine the success found in other states in privatizing state hospitals. We need to protect our community and provide the best services possible to the mentally ill. It is obvious that the State has been unable to accomplish either goal in view of the Federal consent decree and the recent rash of escapees. Hawaii should consider privatizing the State Hospital.
Brutal doodle about editorials By Richard O. Rowland, President - Grassroot Institute of Hawaii Some of us read the newspapers every day and can be heard remarking that we can't figure out what logic or illogic led to conclusions expressed in editorials in our newspapers. My own take on this has been expressed with a clumsy attempt at humor: "What criterion is used to select an editorial writer fof the Honolulu Advertiser?" Answer;Ý"he or she must have first undergone a frontal lobotomy" Ha Ha Ha. Now, Saundra Keyes,the new Editor of the Advertiser has come up with the great idea of having an advisory board of volunteer customers of the paper to consult with and advise their Editorial Board. I volunteered and Saundra has acknowledged such. I am looking forward to finding out how editorials are conceived, developed and approved. Here's hoping it is less messy and silly than the legislative process. This served as a reminder of the all time stupid editorial I have ever seen and it did not come from the Advertiser. No siree, it was in the New York Times Jan 27, 1995 as quoted by the Cato Institute: " Gov. Christine Todd Whitman's most striking proposal for savings is a plan to eliminate some 3,400 state jobs, primarily through privitization. Perhaps some jobs are not needed. Evan so, this is a brutal transference of state salaries into the pockets of taxpayers." The writer of that editorial thinks that money comes from heaven rather than production of valuable goods and services. Further he or she believes that government created man, its faithful servant. It is hoped that interaction with the Editorial Board will result in their getting a better understanding of the key role of the self-governing, responsible, accountable,moral individual to a viable society. They also need to understand that government currently mostly impedes such persons by obfuscating property rights, ignoring normal scarcity, and focusing on " group" rights. Please let me know if you want me to pass on a favorite " beef" which keeps you from your primary duty of satisfying your customers.Ý
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