Button-making local An 11-year-old boy with terminal cancer who has raised more than $6,000 for the Sept. 11 relief effort will get the chance to visit the city he has helped.
boy to make an
appearance on
‘Rosie’ show
Rochan Pinho, 11, a cancer patient,
has raised $6,000 for NYCBy Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.comRochan Pinho will be flying to New York to make a Dec. 4 appearance on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" to talk about how he raised money making and selling patriotic buttons at the Longs Drug Store in Pearl City Shopping Center and other locations around the island.
Rochan had originally planned to present O'Donnell with a more substantial donation to the Sept. 11 Fund, but last month he sent $5,006 back with New York state trooper Dave Bast, who had been vacationing in Hawaii.
The $5,006 was what Rochan raised before his effort was temporarily curtailed by Child Protective Services. CPS officials halted the button making while they investigated a claim that Rochan and his five siblings were being exploited by their parents. He has since been allowed to resume his fund raising.
But now, when he goes on O'Donnell's show, "I was thinking about bringing the button press and showing how I make the buttons," Rochan said.
The old press has seen better days, however, especially after pressing the hundreds of buttons he designed himself on the computer. "It's the one that's held together with wire," he said, laughing.
With clearance from his doctors, Rochan has started selling the buttons again, branching out to the Kmart near Aloha Stadium. He now has more than 30 designs, including some with a Christmas theme. He has raised more than $1,000 since restarting his fund-raising campaign, and hopes to add another $9,000 to that before he is through.
Plans are in the works for another trip to New York to visit with rescue workers and government officials, to whom Pinho sent 400 specially designed buttons back with Bast.
