Panda Travel and former Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi kicked off the drive by donating $50,000 apiece to a program in dire need of money. Yoshida said yesterday that there would be a multitude of announcements, including the completion of the loft area in the Special Events Arena and the consolidation of the UH football locker rooms.

"We're going to kick off the fund-raising process for the athletic department," Yoshida said.

"We also plan to make some other announcements to the benefit of our program."

UH head football coach Fred vonAppen said one of those would be the completion of the football locker rooms used every day for practice.

At this point, there are two rooms separatedm from each other, with 25 players in one and nearly 100 in another.

"It's not necessary to have our guys separated like that," vonAppen said. "They've (workers have) already started painting the place. They're going to knock down some walls and consolidate the entire thing.

"It's something we definitely need to have done. I heard they were going to complete the athletic center in the Special Events Arena for about $3.5 million."

Koa Anuenue - the major UH booster club - is expected to borrow money to pay for this completion, then try to raise money to pay it off.

The 10,000-square-foot loft area will be used for an athletic center and classrooms. The loft was part of the original Special Events Arena plans that weren't completed in time for its opening two years ago.

Yoshida also said yesterday that the UH football team would take a charter flight to San Diego next weekend.

At a cost of $150,000, Hawaiian Airlines will fly the Rainbows to Southern California on Thursday in an empty plane. They return Saturday afternoon on a commercial flight that goes through Los Angeles.

Late last month, Yoshida pleaded with the public to send money to help defray costs of this nature. Today's announcement of a fund-raising campaign is an attempt to get things rolling.