Group honored for Maunalua Bay efforts

Malama Maunalua, a community group working to conserve and restore Maunalua Bay in East Honolulu, has received the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii's 2008 Kako'o 'Aina (Supporter of the Land) Award. The award was established three years ago to recognize community support for conservation in Hawaii.

The Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu has shipped medical equipment and two years' worth of supplies to a community health center in Pago Pago, American Samoa. The club purchased a Bayer/Siemens DCA Vantage Analyzer for use in diabetes management with a $12,546 grant from the Rotary International Foundation and matching contributions from District 5000 and the Pago Pago Club. Alan Tang, chairman of the Metro club's international service committee, said the club identified the need in American Samoa with help from the Pacific Islands Primary Care Association and contacted the Tafuna Health Center, which has a renal outreach program but lacked proper equipment.

The state Department of Education will be able to buy and install SMART Technologies' interactive products for classrooms with a $50,000 gift certificate from AVCO, Hawaii's largest audiovisual company. The gift was presented at the recent eighth annual Technology Industry Awards: Flavors of Technology, hosted by Technology News Bytes.