COURTESY OF PAPAKOLEA COMMUNITY CENTER The Papakolea Community Center was built in 1932 with donated lumber and the work of 10 families from the area.

Woman’s dedication keeps
Papakolea center running

Maria Suganuma has helped
the site evolve for most of her life

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By Genevieve A. Suzuki
gsuzuki@starbulletin.com

Maria Suganuma was the matriarch of the Papakolea Community Center even before it was built.

Suganuma, 95, has spent about three-quarters of her life as a teacher and kupuna at the center.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Maria Suganuma, 95, has spent three-quarters of her life as a teacher and kupuna at the Papakolea Community Center.

Suganuma's house figuratively evolved into the community center. Her mother's living room hosted child health conferences that moved to the center when it was built in 1932 with used lumber.

It is now a concrete structure, which the city returned to the Papakolea Community Association on Sept. 1.

In the early 1920s, the nurse running the Pauoa program for the Board of Health, May "Mother" Bowron, asked Suganuma to have the health conference at her house so that it would be closer to the Papakolea community.

"So I asked my mother, and my mother said yes," Suganuma said. "The thing got so big. The people in the community wanted to bring their children to the child health conference, so the nurse said to me, 'We better go find a bigger place.' That's how this started, this community."

In 1926, the Papakolea community asked Julian Yates, then the head of Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, for help in acquiring land for a center, said Suganuma.

"We went to ask him for a place, so he gave us this place," Suganuma said.

"When the (center) was first built, they didn't have walls," said Suganuma's niece, Doreen Saito.

Queen's Medical Center, then Queen's Hospital, donated lumber from its old building for the center's first structure. There were 10 families from Papakolea who helped build the center, Suganuma said.

In 1934, the center became a preschool and a kindergarten for the community's 4- and 5-year-olds, said Suganuma, who taught at the school until it closed in 1965.

Saito, 71, remembers her aunt teaching two of her children at the Papakolea preschool. "My aunty has had a real rich life," said Saito.

Suganuma, who is 100 percent Hawaiian, was born in Honokohau, Maui. She worked on a ranch and in the taro patches and lived without a telephone and electricity before moving to Papakolea, Saito said.

Suganuma said the best thing about working at the Papakolea Community Center was helping her people. "I like to work with Hawaiians," Suganuma said with a smile. "It was interesting to work with the Hawaiians."

Suganuma raised seven children at her Tantalus Drive home in Papakolea, where she now lives with her daughter Doreen and two of her grandchildren.

Among her 15 grandchildren are isle entertainers Ernie Cruz, John Cruz, Guy Cruz and former Miss Hawaii Desiree Moana Cruz.

Several of Suganuma's grandchildren attended the Papakolea preschool and kindergarten. "All the children from the homesteaders came to the school," she said. "And I treated everybody equally."

Puni Kekauoha, president of the Papakolea Community Association, was one of Suganuma's students. "I was the ehu kid," Kekauoha said. "My memories of this program was standing on a stool after we went to this radio station and had to sing 'Ahi Wela.'"

Kekauoha said the future looks good for the community center.

"It's really looking at exercising self-determination in its purest form," Kekauoha said. "It's truly a community center now."

The Papakolea community has $167,000 of a $330,000 federal grant that needs to be spent by the end of this year toward the center's renovations and programs. "The hall was really being underutilized," Kekauoha said.

One of the planned improvements to the center is the addition of a computer laboratory, said Kekauoha, who expects 10 computers -- five Macs and five PCs -- to be set up by November.

"Once the computer room is provided, we will provide classes for the community," Kekauoha said. The center's goal is to provide at least 100 people with basic computer skills.

The center will continue to offer its usual elderly and youth programs, Kekauoha said.

The center's improvements should be completed by December, Kekauoha said. She said she is excited to show the new center to Suganuma.

"This is big," Kekauoha said. "It's hard not to be excited."

"I am doing this to empower native Hawaiian people just to be able to succeed in any endeavor," said Kekauoha, looking around the second floor of the center.

Kekauoha pointed to pictures arranged on a poster board on her office's wall. The photographs span from 1942 to 1962 and show a young, attractive Suganuma with Papakolea preschool and kindergarten students. Another poster board prominently features Suganuma with the headings, "Papakolea's Treasure" and "A Pioneer Woman."

"I keep these to remember why we're doing this," Kekauoha said.

Suganuma remains actively involved with the center as the kupuna with the Papakolea Community Association and a member of Ke Ola O Na Kupuna, the Alu Like program for the elderly.

Saito said Suganuma spends every Tuesday at the Papakolea Community Center with the kupuna program, of which she is the oldest member.

"This is our hangout on Tuesdays," said Saito. Depending on the itinerary, kupuna have their lunch catered, play bingo, share craft secrets or see a nutritionist.

"I can see my aunty still blooming in the group," Saito said.

"This is my home," Suganuma said.