Cameron Center seeks volunteers for golf tourney

The J. Walter Cameron Center has volunteer spots now open to help the center with their volunteer work directing the parking of cars at the Sentry Tournament of Champions beginning on Monday, Jan. 3, and ending on Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022. This is a major annual fundraising event for the center.

Volunteers will be directing parking at the Plantation Course site in Lahaina on Jan. 3-9 in two shifts. The first shift is from 7 a.m. to noon, and the second shift is from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The shifts are the same on all six days. There are 14 shifts in total over the six days. Sixteen volunteers are needed for each shift.

Volunteer Activity Description:

· Volunteers to flag vehicles into parking lot and signal location of parking areas (volunteers not allowed to drive other people’s vehicles).

· Bring personal umbrella, chair and raincoat.

· Sunscreen, hat and sunglasses are highly recommended to bring.

· Water and lunch will be provided by the Cameron Center.

· Portable facilities available within brief walking distance.

· Safety vest to be provided by the Cameron Center for the time of volunteering.

Please contact Cesar Gaxiola, executive director of the Cameron Center, at cesar@jwcameroncenter.org or call him at (808) 244-5546 no later than Monday, Dec. 20, 2021, to volunteer.

By volunteering, you’ll help raise funds that will benefit the Cameron Center’s nonprofit community of 18 agencies and social service organizations serving the low-income community since 1973.

TOM BLACKBURN-RODRIGUEZ, Wailuku

Public areas should have stocked and open restrooms

(The following letter was sent to the state during the comment period for the Hawaii State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan.)

The first thing about all areas used by the public is there should be OPEN and clean and stocked toilets.

There is no excuse to having people poop in public — and that is what IS happening now. This is how disease spreads.

If it takes DLNR employees monitoring these public restrooms and cleaning them several times a day, then it is worth it. This is what we pay taxes for.

Yes, I hear about the vandalism — so put a camera on the outside of the door so you can see when people go in and out, and prosecute the vandals. Do not make the rest of us suffer.

Do you have any idea how many tourists are pooping behind the storage shed at Mala Wharf? Is this the way you want tourists to remember their trip?

Tourists, working residents and homeless all need to use restrooms. No one has a choice about that.

JAN DOEHI, Lahaina

Rethinking work and life

As a writer, I get stuck every so often straining for the right words to tell my story.

Over the years, though, I’ve learned when to quit tying myself into mental knots over sentence construction. Instead, I step back and rethink where my story is going.

This process is essentially what millions of American working families are going through this year, as record numbers of them are shocking bosses, politicians and economists by stepping back and declaring: “We quit!”

Most of the quits are tied to very real abuses that have become ingrained in our workplaces over the past couple of decades — poverty paychecks, no health care, unpredictable schedules, no child care, understaffing, forced overtime, unsafe jobs, sexist and racist managers, aggressively rude customers and so much more.

Specific grievances abound, but at the core of each is a deep, inherently destructive executive-suite malignancy: disrespect. The corporate system has cheapened employees from valuable human assets worthy of being nurtured and advanced to a bookkeeping expense that must be steadily eliminated.

It’s not just about paychecks. It’s about feeling valued — feeling that the hierarchy gives a damn about the people doing the work.

Yet corporate America is going out of its way to show that it doesn’t care — and, of course, workers notice. So unionization is booming, millions who were laid off by the pandemic are refusing to rush back to the same old grind, and now millions who have jobs are quitting.

This is much more than an unusual unemployment stat. It’s a sea change in people’s attitude about work itself — and life.

People are rethinking where their story is going and how they can take it in a better direction.

Yes, nearly everyone will eventually return to work, but workers themselves have begun redefining the job and rebalancing it with life.

JIM HIGHTOWER, Otherwords.org