The Anahola Hawaiian Homes Association (AHHA) celebrated the Grand Opening of the Anahola Homeownership Resource Center on Sunday, October 18, 2009. The festivities included an introduction to the Resource Center, pule or blessings by Kahu

Mokihana Powers, and fellowship by attendees who flocked from various communities across the islands.

"The Resource Center Grand Opening is an important milestone for the Anahola Hawaiian Homes Association and the whole neighborhood as a whole," said Lorraine

Rapozo, AHHA President. "Anahola can use the Center to access computers, copiers, fax machines, phones, and many other services, including the assistance of a

knowledgeable staff that is well-versed with office communications. Whether it be homework or office work, the Center creates a space that is much needed to further

the skills of our community members."

"The sense of community here is so overwhelming, as evident during the Grand Opening festivities. The Center will present great opportunities for current and future

Anahola residents to access financial literacy and homeownership resources," said Carl Millender, CNHA Community Development VISTA Volunteer

The Anahola Resource Center is a public facility located at the entrance of the Anahola homestead community and consists of two modest office buildings on a half acre lot adjacent to 10 acres planned for a future outdoor market and commercial kitchen. Twelve full-time jobs are supported at the Anahola Resource Center, some of the first and only permanent employment opportunities inside the homestead.

Included in the features of the center are a series of homeownership and foreclosure prevention workshops led by local nonprofit, Hawaiian Community Assets.

"We mahalo all our partners that made this Project possible – Hawaiian Community Assets, Kahua, Inc., Hawaiian Homestead Technology, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement," Rapozo continued. "We would also like to thank the community members that volunteered their time and made this Center a reality. We're a small homestead association with big hopes, doing what we can with what we have – the Resource Center showed us, if you dream it, with hard work, you can create it."

AHHA is a homestead association of Anahola homesteaders founded more than 30 years ago, to promote the quality of life of the Anahola community. For more information on the Anahola Homeownership Resource Center, contact HCA at (808) 587-7886.