Read Aloud Shakespeare group meets today
Read Aloud Shakespeare, a group that meets each month in Keauhou to read The Bard’s plays, will gather to read “Julius Caesar” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. today.
Shakespeare fans are invited to bring a copy of the play and join the gathering. Attendees take turns reading the parts. No previous Shakespeare or acting ability is required.
Info: Joy Vogelgesang, 557-0694.
Ensemble Hesperus performs during silent movie
Ensemble Hesperus will provide live period music for the silent movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with Lon Chaney at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Queen Emma Community Center in Kealakekua. The event is hosted by Early Music Hawaii.
Renowned for many years as performers of medieval and early renaissance music, the members of Ensemble Hesperus have more recently developed a repertory of period music for live accompaniment with classic silent movies. Nell Snaidas, Tina Chancey, Grant Herreid and Priscilla Herreid sing and play an array of period instruments.
Tickets are $25 and available at earlymusichawaii.com. Info: 960-3650.
Girl Scouts plan car washes
Girl Scout Troop 2028 will hold a car wash Saturday and Feb. 13 Kmart. The event will raise funds for the troop to travel to Oahu March 4 through 6 to complete work on badge projects, visiting the Bishop museum and the Arizona Memorial. The troop also performs service projects such as sending more than 400 stockings to deployed soldiers.
Donations can also be mailed to Girl Scouts, PO Box 5489, Kailua-Kona, HI 96745.
Konaweana student work on display
Konawaena High School will hold its third annual Career Technology Education and Art Showcase from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Dancing Tree Dance Studio in Kealakekua.
The event will showcase work from culinary, agriculture, food science, robotics and visual arts classes. Students from the Dancing Tree studio will perform during the event. Work from Konawaena Middle School students will also be on display.
P.E.O. luncheon planned
The local chapter of P.E.O. will hold its first no-host winter luncheon of the season at 11:45 a.m. Saturday at Splasher’s Grill across from Kailua Pier. All P.E.O. members and their guests are invited.
P.E.O. is an international women’s organization supporting women’s education through loans, grants and scholarships.
Info: Pat, 322-9534. Make reservations by Thursday.
Free VA home loan seminar offered
A free Veterans Affairs home loan seminar will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the Elks Club, 74-5596 Pawai Place in Kailua-Kona.
Loan specialist Tony Dias will teach veterans how to utilize their VA home loan benefit to purchase or refinance a home up to $625,500 with no money down and no private mortgage insurance, or have more than one VA loan at a time.
Dias has been educating veterans in Hawaii, California and Washington for eight years. He is the branch manager for Veterans United Home Loans of Hawaii.
Space is limited. Attendees are encouraged to register: 436-5791.
Refreshments and snacks will be served.
Hilo Vet Center expands hours
Hilo Vet Center is now open from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
The center also offers a monthly benefits briefing from 9 a.m. to noon on the first Thursday of each month. Activities available include a shore fishing group, kanakapila group, art therapy group, stand-up paddling group, golf, yoga, tai chi, and a book club.
Hilo Vet Center is at 70 Lanihuli St. Info: 969-3833.
Kona Pacific Public Charter School Receives USDA grant
Kona Pacific Public Charter School was one of 74 projects spanning 39 states to receive support this year through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm to School Program.
Kona Pacific Public Charter School, located in Kealakekua, received a $41,785 grant from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service for a Farm to School planning project.
The school runs an array of programs that serve the Kona community in many areas of agriculture and nutrition. Kona Pacific is the only educational organization in Hawaii that operates a community food service, providing healthy meals to more than 600 of the community’s most vulnerable residents. In addition, the school has been a leader in school nutrition programs, launching the state’s first Universal Breakfast in the Classroom program, as well as the only Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program in the state that utilizes 100 percent locally sourced produce. In the summer of 2015, the school introduced Hawaii’s first mobile Summer Food Service program, providing more than 4,000 lunches to hungry kids throughout West Hawaii in June and July. That program is planned for major expansion in 2016.
In 2015, the school’s supporting nonprofit, Friends of Kona Pacific Public Charter School, was selected as the recipient of a $1.2 million Grant-In-Aid award from the Hawaii State Legislature for the planning and construction of a community kitchen, which will be used for the community food service and as a value-added processing facility available to local family farms, the first such facility in West Hawaii.
Friends owns the 40-acre Kealakekua parcel on which Kona Pacific Public School is located, with 20 acres set aside for farm development.