It’s unfortunate we have “Furlough Fridays” affecting all Hawaii’s public school students. But, because Hawaii is such a small place, both big and small businesses of our community have an obligation to pitch in.

Through hosting this Furlough Friday science and energy day, Chaminade’s Hogan Students, Sopogy and Energy Industries, our sponsors including Styrophobia, Waialua Soda Works, Round Table Pizza, volunteers from the High Technology Development Corporation, Hawaii Science and Technology Council and Kanu Hawaii are being part of the solution.

In attendance at our Furlough Friday event we hosted 52 students from Waianae, Waipahu, Mililani, Campbell, McKinley, Kailua, Moanalua, Pearl City and a number of home schooled students. This was our answer…

What will you do?

We challenge all Hawaii businesses to heed the call.

There are many ways you can help:

Host a Furlough Friday event at your site
Participate in an existing Furlough Friday event
Sponsor with your goods
Volunteer with your service
Donate, even a small amount of cash helps a lot!

Here’s the agenda from our day. Perhaps this format will give you some ideas to help you plan yours:

8:30 – 8:45 Introduction of day, review of schedule by Dy Phung

Food Sponsored by: Sopogy

8:45 – 9:30 Sopogy Education Stations (4 stations with 10 minutes each then rotate+time to move around)

Station 1: Kip at SopoNova
Station 2: Jon at SopoFlare
Station 3: Jim, Jennifer, Peter in Engineering
Station 4: Tal, overview of renewable on the grid at board room

9:30 – 10:30 Meeting with the Executives (2 stations with 30 minutes each then rotate)

Station 1: Darren at Sopogy Team Room
Station 2: Miles at Mercury Conference Room

10:30 – 11:30 Energy Industries with Brandon Hayashi, Duane Ashimine and EI team

Station 1: Solar Photovoltaic
Station 2: Energy Efficient Lighting
Station 3: Air Conditioning

11:30 – 12:30 Lunch

Food Sponsored by: Roundtable Pizza
Drinks Sponsored by: Waialua Soda Works
Utensils Sponsored by: Styrophobia

12:30 – 1:00 Energy Education with Non-Profits

Station 1: James Koshiba of Kanu Hawaii
Station 2: Keiki-Pua Dancil of Hawaii Science and Technology Council

1:00 – 2:30 CSP Making Project and Competition

Top 10 students received $10 Jamba Juice Gift Cards donated by Sopogy

Here are some additional notes:

On Monday prior to the event we had 1 student. We put out a call to all our friends for help. In the following 3 days over 51 participants signed up. Thank you to all who volunteered helping spread the word. They include:
- Cathy Kawano-Ching – Punahou
- Pono Shim – Enterprise Honolulu
- Carolyn Kaichi – Hawaii Academy of Science
- Sandy Park and Sandi Kanemori – High Technology Development Corporation
- Leigh-Ann Miyasato – Entrepreneur Foundation
- Representative Lyla Berg
- Senator Jill Tokuda
- Ron Nagasawa – Midweek
- Sherry Menor-McNamara – Chamber of Commerce Hawaii
- Ann Davis – Education Matters
- Colleen Murakami – Student Support OCISS
- The Honolulu Advertiser
- Hawaii News Now
Sopogy, Energy Industries and the participants employed “Fossil Fuel Free Friday” with the commitment to use efficient transportation methods. People came in riding bikes, car pooling, catching the bus, walking, running and some even skateboarded in!