WAIMEA — More than 250 Waimea Middle School (WMS) students, families and community friends participated in the 5th Annual WMS Fun Run/Walk and silent auction Friday to celebrate near completion of the school’s new $16 million, 9-classroom STEAM building.
The first students to complete the 1.5 mile run and receive medals were seventh-graders Lillian Bergan and Jordan Barcenilla in first and second place, and sixth-grader Enry Bemry in third place. For the 3-mile run, first place went to eighth-grader TJ Arakawa for first place, sixth-grader Keanu Hulama for second and eigth-grader Alema Ah Loy for third.
The winner of the event’s top door prize — an iPad donated to the school — was sixth-grader Maui Hokoana.
The run/walk and silent auction kicked off a new fundraising effort for more than $1 million needed over the next several years. The money will go towards state-of-the-art technology for the STEAM teaching to better prepare students and community for the 21st-century world and workplace. The school’s vision for the new building includes both its sixth through ninth-grade students and also providing technology supports, training and collaboration with other schools and the wider community.
At Friday’s event, a steady line of runners and walkers set off from campus to make their way through Luala’i homes and looped around Ala Ohia and Pukalani Roads to return to the school for the silent auction and dinner.
More than $6,000 was generously donated for the run and silent auction, which featured everything from smoked meat and a dozen extravagant gift baskets created by Advisory classes to 15 tons of gravel donated by West Hawaii Concrete plus hauling by S&R Trucking.
Beginning Oct. 9, the school’s aged master electrical meter will be replaced during Fall Break, requiring complete shutdown of both Waimea Elementary and Waimea Middle Schools’ power and Internet. Both schools’ offices will be entirely closed to the public during that week. Classes will resume Oct. 16.
Once the master meter is replaced, a certificate of occupancy must be secured. Then move-in to the two-story, 24,000-square-foot learning center can begin.
Classes are expected to begin in the new STEAM building Jan. 8, with the start of the second semester.