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TheBuzz

BY ERIKA ENGLE

Home-building materials
seeking home

Hawaii Habitat for Humanity is vacating its Kapalama warehouse this week and it has to clean out its inventory of "new and used construction materials we cannot use," Executive Director Jose Villa said.

Materials are offered "free to any agency or individual that can use them," he said.

Staff members will be available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today and Friday to assist in the non-cost inventory reduction, or vulture shopping; some will be on hand Saturday as well, he said.

The warehouse is one block mauka of Nimitz Highway off Kalihi Street between Hart and Kalani Streets and has two addresses: 1804 Hart St. and 1809 Kalani St.

If you can haul it, you can have it, Villa said. "Folks should come prepared to take anything they want with them," he said. "We cannot deliver anything."

Last June the organization had hoped to move its offices from Manoa into the warehouse but learned the owner had a new tenant in mind. The offices are now in Aiea as the organization gears up for its next big project.

On June 1 Habitat will begin construction of a 45-unit affordable housing subdivision in Kapolei, where it also has a base of operations in a former Barbers Point Naval Air Station hangar and other facilities, Villa said.

Convention invention

It's not your father's incentive-travel team-building exercise but it is a new opportunity for the Shops at Wailea.

Nongolfers who came to Hawaii with the California Refuse Removal Counsel last month participated in a scavenger hunt at the Shops, grasping figuratively for a brass ring in the form of luxury goods including gift certificates from Noa Noa and Tommy Bahama.

The winner correctly answered 14 of 15 questions for the high-value haul of high-end Hawaii goodies.

Hunters were tasked with answering questions about Shops' tenants and their products such as, "What was the first store in the world to sell only T-shirts?" and "Which store brand was named after the highest peak in Western Europe?"

The only catch, and it was a lulu -- none of the answers could be obtained from Shops employees.

According to spokeswoman Ashley Stepanek, the answers are Crazy Shirts and Mont Blanc.

Inquiries to Shops contact Michele Burla Parker about the scavenger hunt, gallery tours and other convention activity ideas are expected to increase as the possibilities are pitched to destination management companies and other travel-related businesses and organizations.

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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com