Jasha "J-Boy" Miller and Courtney Lynch Fernandez climb a pole
in front of the new mural at the Palolo Valley Housing
Administration Building.

Sometimes what makes a place special is just ordinary people living ordinary lives. Palolo Valley is such a place. On any given day, there are kids celebrating birthdays, neighbors hacking up a pig for pupus, farmers cultivating crops, families tending small stores, a daughter visiting her mother in law at the Palolo Chinese Home.

Tucked behind Kaimuki, its roads reaching more than three miles back into the Koolaus, Palolo doesn't get the attention of many other neighborhoods.

When it has, it's often been negative, often associated with the public housing project that sits in the middle of the valley. But the tarnished image is not reflective of Palolo in general, residents say. The mural project in Palolo Valley Housing is just one example of the good things they say happens there all the time.

In the end, however, there was obvious method to the mural.

About 30 youngsters, ages 8 to 15, from the Palolo Valley and Kuhio Park Terrace public housing projects, came together one recent weekend to design and execute a colorful mural depicting "This Is Our Valley: Palolo Pride."

Organizers of the Palolo Pride Celebration, taking place Saturday, hope the mural will be part of a longer-term project to provide positive outlets for Palolo youth.

Smith Lafaele, foreground, and Cecilia Sakaria help paint the mural.
Photo by Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin

The mural, which flourishes with lots of greenery, is painted on two adjacent walls of the Palolo Valley Housing administration building on Ahe Street. It had its beginning in family workshops at Kuhio Park Terrace sponsored by the Hawaii Alliance for Arts Education, said Meleana Meyers, an art teacher at Punahou School and one of two supervising artists for the project.

The other is Sekio Fuapopo, a Samoan artist from San Francisco who was in town for a show of his paintings this month at Borders Books & Music at Ward Centre.

"The whole thing is community, community, community," Meyers said, noting that 13 organizations worked on the Palolo project. "It shows that there are commitments to the valley."

Before the actual painting, the youngsters had four hours for drawing lessons and preliminary sketches.

Kids and teens put plenty of work into the mural at Palolo Valley housing. Photo by Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin

The main advice he had was "to try to respect the other guy's space."

Randall Asuego, 12, was responsible for depicting the name "Palolo" in big, bold letters. Being good at something that was so much fun makes him think that, "maybe," he could be an artist one day, he said.

George Caspino, 14, like Asuego a student at Jarrett Intermediate School and a resident of Palolo Valley Housing, reflected on his artistry: "It's easy," he said, noting his experience in art classes at school. Of Palolo, he said, "It's fun to live here because got plenty things to do, like boxing at the gym."

"It's neat to bring the kids (from different housing projects) together and to have the families come out," said Robert Muranaka, a Hawaii Housing Authority public housing supervisor. "It helps to instill a little pride."

When the work was all done, there was plenty of fun,
featuring Jason, Jasmine and Jasha Miller along with
Johnathan and James Soloman.