While visiting Honolulu during the Rim Pac exercises, some of the crew of San Diego based USS Denver helped Keiki O Ka Aina Family Learning Centers move one of their school locations and did landscaping at another.

The Parent Participation Preschool that has been located at Nui Valley Intermediate school is relocating to Hahaione elementary. About 10 members of the USS Denver helped by removing the contents of the classroom, loading it into a U-Haul and then moved everything into the new classroom at Hahaione elementary. With the help of the USS Denver, everything was moved within a matter of hours.

The other project was at the Kalihi Baptist Parent Participation preschool site where the crew members did general landscaping and rebuilt a previous garden project by removing the previous bedding and weeds and digging up the soil to turn it over and prepare it for new plants and a garden.

Keiki O Ka Aina extended their appreciation for the USS Denver with lunch, watermelon, homemade brownie cupcakes, peach, chocolate cake and an appreciation plaque.

USS Denver tour
Families of the Keiki O Ka Aina staff and programs were later invited on a tour of the USS Denver. Lieutenant Lee, the ship's Chaplin lead us on a guided tour of the USS Denver that gave us the chance to see what it's like on a large Naval ship. We got to see helicopters on the ship's deck, the ships control room, the cafeteria where the crew eats, the ships intake bay where the ship takes on water so that smaller ships can drive into the ship, and lots more. The USS Denver also treated us to drinks, doughnuts, and snacks while we were on board.

Keiki O Ka Aina would like to extend a big Mahlo Nui to the crew members of the USS Denver that made a diffrence in our programs and for giving us a great experience of touring their vessel. Special thanks to Jose Cuevas, Rico R. Sutton, Terrance Woodard, Carlton Jones, Jose Hernandez, Tony Le, Zemario Sheppard, Brandon Doctor, Terrance Beard, Bobby Sikorski, Sancho Pobebelte, Weezy Bedgood, Gavin Kumar, Freddie Molina, and Chaplain Lee for the work they perfromed at our preschool locations.