Concert celebrates
daughter’s memoryProceeds will benefit the
Hawaiian school Halau Ku Mana
Castle High School student Jasmine Lilinoe Pai would have been 16 on Sunday.
Concert tickets
Tickets for a concert benefiting Halau Ku Mana, a Hawaiian charter school, and featuring Mauna Lua, Simplisity, Crosspoint and Red Degree, from 3 to 9 p.m. at the Hawaii Maritime Center -- for a $10 donation each -- can be purchased at:>> Cheapo Music, 1009 University Ave.
>> Jelly's, 98-023 Hekaha St., Suite B1-9.
>> Hungry Ear, 418 Kuulei Road.
>> Bishop Museum ticket office, 1525 Bernice St.
On that day, her mother, Lisa Pai, will host a concert -- not in commemoration of Lilinoe's death last year in a two-vehicle collision in Kailua, but rather to raise money for Halau Ku Mana, a Hawaiian charter school Lilinoe would have attended.
"I want to turn the tragedy into a happy memory," Lisa Pai said.
From 3 to 9 p.m. Sunday at the Hawaii Maritime Center, members of the Pai family from the Big Island, Kauai and the mainland will help prepare lomi salmon, kalua pig and rice. Family and friends have donated the food; the pig came from a friend of Pai's husband, Pai said.
Music groups Simplisity, Red Degree, Crosspoint and Mauna Lua will perform.
Lilinoe Pai was killed on May 28, 2002, in a two-car collision on Kalanianaole Highway near the Women's Community Correctional Center, police said. She was a passenger in a four-door sedan; the 22-year-old male driver sped across the grass median, and the car slid across the road into oncoming traffic and was hit broadside by a van, breaking the car in two, police said.
Lisa Pai said celebrating the birthday of a person who has died is part of Hawaiian tradition and culture. "Everything Lilinoe did was for the Hawaiian culture. She loved to sing and dance. This happy time would make her happy."
Kevin Perry, who plays ukulele for Crosspoint, sympathizes and wants to do something for the family and for Lilinoe, whom he met last year.
"If anything, she's in a better place now," Perry said.
"The bands are all doing it for aloha. None of them are charging anything, mainly because they know all the money will go to Halau Ku Mana," Pai said.
Proceeds will go to activities for Halau Ku Mana schoolchildren, such as trips to the neighbor islands and the mainland. Halau Ku Mana strives to provide education through experience and provides its 61 enrolled students with learning "without walls," said Hanakia Tui, of Halau Ku Mana.
Students travel around the island to places such as the Nature Center in Makiki and the Heeia fishponds in Kaneohe. They learn about biology, math, astronomy and other academic subjects that are traditionally taught in classrooms. Students of Halau Ku Mana have also traveled to Alaska, New Zealand and Japan.
Pai hopes the concert is successful so it can be held annually.
"It's what Lilinoe would have wanted. She would be grateful and proud," she said.
The purpose of the event, Pai said, is "not to remember the day we lost her, but to focus on the day she was given to us."
