Cleaning Up Kalihi: Farrington High School's PAAC Club Year in Review
The back of a parade is not a glamorous place to be. But on November 28, 2025, about 30 PAAC students from across Oʻahu chose that spot deliberately — trailing the Kalihi Business Association Christmas Parade, picking up what everyone else left behind. By the end of the route, they had filled 7 to 8 trash bags with debris and sidewalk litter, dressed in holiday outfits, in the neighborhood many of them call home.
That's Farrington PAAC in a sentence: showing up, doing the unglamorous work, and finding joy in it.
A Club Finding Its Rhythm
The W.R. Farrington High School PAAC Club is 15 members strong, led by President Rain Young, Treasurer Kim Maderazo, and Senior Advisor Kamakea Wright. After a period of inconsistent meetings — an honest challenge the club names directly in their report — FHS PAAC landed on a steady every-other-week cadence that held through the second half of the year. Getting there required some grace with themselves and each other.
The KBA Parade: Trash, Tinsel, and 30 Students
The KBA Parade cleanup was the year's signature moment. FHS PAAC has walked the parade before, and they knew what the aftermath looked like. This year, they did something about it — and they didn't do it alone. Pulling together students from multiple PAAC clubs across the island, the event became as much a community-building moment as a service project.
"I met so many new PAAC people and made many friends from this experience! I was delighted to be cleaning up my neighborhood, as I often feel people get fixated on the grime in Kalihi rather than the beautiful nature. I had an awesome time having Holiday fun with the PAAC club! I hope we continue to take part in this parade for years to come." — Rain Young
Posters with a Point
Closer to campus, FHS PAAC tackled a different kind of environmental problem: trash left around the school. Over about a week, members designed posters using Canva, anchored to SDG 13: Climate Action. They landed on two designs — one informational, one blunt: Be a global citizen, clean up after yourself.
"I really liked working together with the PAAC club to create the posters together. We all got to give our input into the designs and change them how we like! I also liked learning about how graphics like these can encourage real change in people!" — Kamakea Wright
PAAC Programs
LEAD Workshop: This year's Leadership Workshop went virtual, and the FHS officers made it work — including a standout virtual escape room that had teams competing on crossword puzzles. "My one gripe from this event is that while doing it virtually was a fun experience I do prefer going in person. There is a type of connection you gain from doing an event like this in person that you can't get from an online meeting." The observation is fair, and worth carrying into next year.
Global Vision Summit: Farrington joined clubs from across Hawaiʻi to debate AI policy in the Pacific, each student representing a different country. A final resolution didn't land — as Kim Maderazo noted, "some conflicts arose" — but working through them was the point. "It was still very fun working with my team and the other groups," she said.
SDGs in the Room
The club dedicated two full meetings to SDG learning, breaking into small groups to choose a goal that resonated personally and build a poster around it. For some members, the connection was immediate. "This experience really inspired me to take part in helping Kalihi. It helped me to recognize the issues that my peers and I have to live with, and how the SDGs apply to it." — Mark Hermano
A visit from PAAC staff brought the global closer to home: a Palau cultural learning session tied to PAAC's upcoming summer travel program. "It was fun to learn more about my culture and understand how other people see it too." — Barbara Yano
Still Growing
FHS PAAC tripled their meeting attendance after a strong Club Rush — an emoji-based country guessing game drew a crowd and converted curiosity into membership. Holding onto that energy through the year is the ongoing work. The club knows it, names it, and is already thinking about next steps.
The streets of Kalihi didn't clean themselves. Neither does a club.
W.R. Farrington High School PAAC Club, led by President Rain Young, participated in the KBA Parade Cleanup GAP, LEAD Workshop, Global Vision Summit, and SDG learning activities during the 2025–2026 school year.
