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Local Hero awards / Sometimes, there’s just not enough gratitude to go around. When publisher Laurie V. Carlson decided to sponsor our first-ever Local Hero awards, co-sponsored by Kilauea Lodge, she had no idea how hard the selection process would be. “Whittling it down to three winners was painful,” she says. In the end, Carlson made these choices, each of whom has earned interisland airfare and accomodations at Kilauea Lodge in Volcano. Mahalo to all who were nominated, and to all who spend their time–paid or otherwise–in service to others.

Mourning becomes electric

Despite being orphaned at age 3, Hiro Ito never really understood grief until college. It wasn’t until a class research trip to the Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families in Portland, Ore., that he watched a video on grieving children and “out of blue, I started bawling,” Ito recalls. “So many memories flashed back to me. I just kind of freaked out.”

The experience shook him so much that it took him a year to return to the center and begin to understand his previously suppressed grief. “That was the beginning of my grief work,” Ito says.

“That was very hard because I thought I was always a happy kid. It wasn’t easy for me…It’s a very hard thing for anybody to grieve and face your past.” Through training, Ito found that his own grief would be one of his greatest strengths in helping children cope with loss.

Ever since that cathartic experience 22 years ago, Ito has worked with grieving children. He earned a master’s degree in Social Work at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and in 2001, co-founded Kids Hurt Too and the Hawaii Foster Youth Coalition (HFYC), under the Outreach for Grieving Youth Alliance (OGYA), a nonprofit organization providing services to low-income single-parent and foster-parent families that include orphans, foster children and children separated from parents due to divorce, incarceration or abandonment. For Kids Hurt Too, Ito coordinates and leads peer support groups for children ages 3–19 who had a parent or close family member die. For HFYC, he mentors transitioning foster youths, ages 14–24.

Cynthia White, the executive director of Kids Hurt Too and HFYC, says “the first time I saw him work in a group, every child wanted his attention. I knew then that this person was special. Normally kids aren’t like that…they’ll spread themselves out among people. But these kids all gathered around him. He’s like the Pied Piper. And he can actually organize them so all the kids feel like they have his attention.”

What drives Ito to work with grieving kids is that “he knows that what he’s been through can actually benefit…many other children,” says White. “The kids come in, they’re hurting, they’re sad. Immediately, he’s connected with them. They’re believing in themselves again. Feeling hopeful again. It’s a magic thing.”

Ito acknowledges that “some of [these] kids reminded me of when I was kid, separated from my parents. I could relate to these kids one way or another.” But while his own personal experience helps him understand childrens’ emotions, ranging from aggression to sorrow, Ito is quick to note that not all stories of loss are the same. “Every child’s story is different.”

But perhaps Ito’s other asset is that he’s just a big kid. What White calls a “youthful spirit,” Ito jokes might just be ADHD. “Somehow, I have a lot of energy…I might have too much energy,” he says. He surfs to try to wear himself out, and just as he used to channel his aggression into sports as a kid, he’s developed his passion for surf into a program called Surf for the Soul, in which youth learn how to surf and care for the ocean.

Having been an orphan in Japan and then a grief counselor in Portland and Honolulu, Ito finds the culture here more encouraging of his work. In Japan, “if something happens, we don’t talk about it,” Ito says. “There’s not [many] places children can go…In Oahu the community so wants to be there for the kids. Grief is a difficult issue, but people here are very warm and always willing to help.”

A man of substance

^“In my life, I know more than 70 people who died from drugs and alcohol,” says John Sotelo, substance abuse counselor with Hina Mauka’s Teen CARE, an adolescent school-based program. “That’s my motivator. I don’t like see nobody else die…I come from the street, too. I tell these kids, ‘Whatever you been through, I can multiply by 100.’ Before, I punk-ass warrior, lolo kine. Now I’m a peaceful warrior.” In his younger days, he was wrapped up in drugs, alcohol and violence. He witnessed his father killed by a drunk driver, and “five years before that, my mom died from cigarettes,” he says.

But Sotelo is not somber. He’s exuberant, his powerful voice and energy radiating over the phone. His refrain: “I love life.” As a counselor with Teen CARE’s 16-week substance abuse treatment program, he teaches drug education and life skills to middle school and high school students seeking help.

“To me, it’s more about life skills,” he says. “And the most important one that I teach is love…The first thing they got to do is love themselves. They learn they can change their manao. I show them the aloha, I teach them to love themselves. Teach them to how to be strong.”

His own path to recovery started with a move to Kauai when he was 18. “I was getting in big trouble on Oahu, getting ready to be locked up or whatever. I turned it around by coming to Kauai. Meeting the right wahine. Having a family. Having kids of my own…Kauai so peaceful. I came over here and I changed. I learned about aloha.”

When his father died, however, Sotelo found his will tested. “My father died from a drunk driver, eight or nine years ago and I was right there,” he says. “You can imagine how I feel about that guy [the driver]. And he was my neighbor. Less than 24 hours later I had to learn to stop hating. I hated that guy. I had to cut through myself…The way I used to roll before was so negative I would have destroyed the guy.”

Sotelo says he doesn’t bring up his past often to those who come to him, but he will to show that he knows how hard life can be. “But if you think positive, you can handle,” he says. “That’s what I train [the students] to do. Get them to think positive. And they trip out how they can actually do that. They so happy when they get there.”

Colleen Fox, director of adolescent services at Hina Mauka Teen CARE, says Sotelo’s aloha and energy translates into tangible results as a counselor: “He has very high outcomes with his kids. The vast majority of the students he works with, they quit using drugs and alcohol. He inspires kids to want to change.”

“I not trying to be bigheaded,” Sotelo says. “But I never had one student that I feel I never helped when they walked out of here…I believe that I connect with all of them…If they step in front of me, they trust me with their life. I take my job so serious. I appreciate they trust me with their life, so I go in there as far as I can to help them figure it out.”

A hand up

^“Every kid needs to have a positive start,” says Cheryl Johnson, program director of Parents and Children Together (PACT). “I would like to see every kid have a good start.” Since this isn’t the case in the real world, Johnson does what she can with PACT’s Community Teen Program (CTP) in and around two public housing projects–Kuhio Park Terrace (KPT) and Puuwai Momi. She’s been with CTP since the very beginning, and celebrated her 20th anniversary a few weeks ago. The program provides after-school services centered on positive youth development. The focus is on education, recreation, sports and social skills via activities like karate classes and Iron Chef competitions.

“[Kids] need places to take risks, positive risks,” Johnson says. “Learn things. Learn how to problem solve… One of the things that we believe in is that kids need to feel connected. They need to feel connected with the greater community. Like within the housing community they live in. They need to feel connected to the school.” Whether or not the children in the housing projects participate in the youth program, PACT’s staff tries to build relationships with all of them.

A teacher by training, Johnson says she gravitates toward any work that involves kids, but she was especially drawn to PACT’s program because of the relationships developed at KPT through her previous work as an educator. “The kids and families have it real hard there. And I’m sure there are wonderful kids other places, but it just kind of clicked for me [at KPT]. I liked maintaining the contact with kids over time. It was important to me for kids to have stability…Some people think that because of the community that the kids are different or more challenged. But they’re kids and we don’t want to label them. They’re kids; they have challenges. Some [challenges] are the same, some are different from other kids, some are harder.”

It’s all work that Johnson brings home, literally. Ten years ago, she adopted three sisters who were in the child welfare system. (She’ll be taking the two youngest with her to the Big Island; the oldest is in college on the mainland.) Her love of children and desire for her own helped her overcome the obstacles of being an older single parent. “It was the best thing I ever did,” she says. She often brings them to the community teen center: “I like my kids to be a part of the center. They have friends here, they know people here.”

Stories about Johnson revolve around her willingness to give children and people a chance. Eteline Paselio, the PACT project specialist who nominated Johnson, says she herself is one of Johnson’s success stories. “I was 20 years old when I started working here,” says Paselio, now 26.

Though she had little experience and lacked some of the technical skills required of the job, Johnson hired her anyway.

“It’s hard to find people that just look at you and take that chance with you,” Paselio says. “Cheryl saw potential in me and never gave up.” She writes in her nomination letter that Johnson has “never given up on the kids that walk through our doors daily since the beginning of this journey.”

Paselio sees firsthand the youth that have been through the program and come back to visit Johnson. “They’re grown with their own kids, but they always remember her,” she says.

Johnson cites this is as one of the greatest rewards of her job. “When kids come back as adults…they don’t have to say, ‘You made the change in my life.’ I just get real satisfaction when kids come back. Maybe they have children of their own. They’ve gone to college. They’re working at a job that they like. They’re just happy.”