CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Junior leader Dani Chu talks to a boy in the city's Summer Fun program who got a little teary during rehearsals for a dance they were to perform. Chu, 17, has been volunteering for Summer Fun for four years.
Teen devotes
time to children
Spend a few minutes with Dani Chu and you feel secure about the future. News reports of drugs in the schools and horror stories about aimless, ambivalent teens all pale when this 17-year-old volunteer talks about her work as a Summer Fun junior leader.
"I just love the kids," Chu says, her voice warm with affection. "They always want to be around you, and I love being needed. Whether it's a little cut on their knee or a lost slipper at the beach, they always need you."
Chu is among hundreds of teens across the island who volunteer their time to help run the City and County of Honolulu's Summer Fun programs, assisting paid senior leaders with running activities and managing groups of children. Last week, for instance, Chu could be found at a Makakilo public swimming pool, barely visible amid the splashing of a crowd of jubilant children surrounding her.
When she leaves the pool briefly to talk to a reporter, several children follow her out like ducklings. "Come back in, Dani," one boy begs. "Dani, don't you want to play?" another child asks hopefully.
"In a minute. Go back, go on now," she coaxes, smiling at them.
"My family teases me about volunteering," she says with a laugh. "'Why do you give up so much of your time when there's no money in it for you?' they tell me. Especially because I'm going to college next year, and I'm paying my own way. But it's just that my mom was a single mom, and I was always by myself. So I always played with other kids, and it was fun. This is a way to stay a kid. 'Cause, you know, nobody in college plays 'Marco Polo' anymore."
And, she admits, "I want to help the kids."
She began volunteering more than four years ago with the Pearl City Highlands Community Youth Group.
"We went out to schools to promote just saying no to drugs," she says. "I was a dancer. We had music and did skits and talked about drugs and gangs." After that, bitten by the volunteering bug, Chu continued on to Summer Fun. She just completed her fourth year.
In Chu's opinion, the greatest need of children today is receiving enough attention. "The parents are so busy working, they don't always have the time to spend with their kids," she says, and tries to compensate for that.
"Tonight, one of the little girls in the program is dancing hula at Pearlridge," Chu says. "She asked me to come watch, and of course I couldn't say no. And she's so excited about it! She's been asking me all day, 'You coming? You coming?' It's so important to her. So I gotta be there."
After her 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. day at the park, and on weekends, Chu goes to work (for money) as a food demonstrator at grocery stores and food shows.
"I also dress up as Lani Moo -- shhhhh! -- and the Kool Aid man," she says, chuckling.
Come fall, the Kamehameha Schools graduate will be heading to the University of Kansas, where she'll be studying psychology. She'll return to Hawaii for the summer and become a Summer Fun senior leader, her first time as a paid city worker. And her boss, Makakilo Community Park director Scott Kamiya, couldn't be more pleased.
"Dani is excellent," he says. "She's willing to take on any challenge, and she has all the qualities we look for in a leader: She's dependable, good with the kids, she knows our program and she can deal with any situation that comes up, whether it's a sick kid or someone's hurt. She's definitely one of the MVPs of my program. I don't know what I would have done this summer without her."
But Chu is much more than just a model worker in Kamiya's eyes; she's also someone he respects.
"Dani comes from a difficult background," he says. "Her father died a few years ago. But she doesn't let that stop her; she perseveres and goes on with life. She's caring and warm, and she's willing to work hard. Dani has tremendous, tremendous character."
