Spirit of Aloha | Message of Aloha | November/December 2001

This Place

Filling a Need

In spearheading the collection of hundreds of cartons of books for Marshall Islands children, Ed Sandstrom exemplifies the theme of Aloha's campaign to "spread a little aloha."

In 1970 in Honolulu, at the Governor's Conference on the Year 2000, a Hawaiian woman named Pilahi Paki spoke spontaneously to a room filled with community, educational and legislative leaders. Eloquently and simply, she told them that aloha, her ancestral legacy, is meant to be shared. A, she said, is for akahai, meaning kindness, to be expressed with tenderness. L stands for lokahi, meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony. O stands for 'olu'olu, meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness. H stands for ha'aha'a, meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty. A stands for ahonui, meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.

She told the group that aloha would be Hawai'i's gift to the new millennium.
We are in the new millennium, and many still repeat and remember the words of the late Pilahi Paki.

Throughout these pages, we present words and images that we feel convey a sense of aloha. Hawai'i's people, living in these beautiful surroundings, are the bearers of this gift of aloha. From the countless songs about Hawai'i's spiritual legacy, we have chosen one by The Mana'o Company, "Aloha," to represent us in our media campaigns launched in October. Like Pilahi Paki, the theme of this song, "spread a little aloha," is a joyful reminder to us all.

Edward Sandstrom is another reminder of the power of good. Here is a man who saw a need and filled it. On a trip to the Marshall Islands with his wife last May, Ed, director of contract administration for Aloha Airlines, learned of the poverty existing in Ebeye, a tiny island near Kwajalein.

"On the flight over, we met a woman, an American nurse working on Kwajalein, who was devoting her weekends to helping the people of Ebeye," Ed explains. "She said the people were so poor that she had spent the past six months helping set up a library on the island. Apparently there are only one or two books in existence written in Marshallese, and no children's books written in Marshallese. In Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, the most recent encyclopedia in the public library is dated 1969."

Every weekday, 2,200 to 2,300 workers take the ferry the 4-mile distance from Ebeye to Kwajalein. Little more than a housing development to support the military in Kwajalein, Ebeye has 17,000 people living on 80 acres.

On his first day back in Hawai'i in May, Ed telephoned the head of the state library system, who directed him to the Rotary Club and the Friends of the Library. One thing led to another, and with helpers Wade McVay and Caroline Dvojacki of the Metro Honolulu Rotary Club and legislative liaison Gus Hannemann, thousands of books were collected and continue to pour in. In storage space donated by Hawaiian Electric, books on mathematics, reading, history and other grade-school subjects pile up and are shipped out. So far, tens of thousands of books have been shipped to American Samoa and Ebeye. Helpers have appeared at every corner, and Ed himself has collected and transported many of the cartons, from loading them in his van to delivering them to Aloha Airlines.

"It's really important for these children to get a basic education," he continues. And because medical supplies are also needed there, he's contacted the makers of Tylenol to arrange shipments of the drug to Ebeye. The humanitarian organization he has established, Friends of the Pacific Foundation (www.friendsofthepacific.org), is devoted to improving the education, health and employment opportunities for indigenous Pacific Islanders.

"It's very rewarding to be involved," he reflects. "When a need is made known, people pitch in and are willing to help."

In this holiday season and throughout the year, we thank Ed Sandstrom and all of you who are spreading a lot of aloha.

Glenn R. Zander
President and Chief Executive Officer, Aloha Airlines

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