After your quick read of this tale of a wonderful day, check out the great photos of all our wonderful friends!
World Ocean Day is an international day that takes place annually on June 8th, so what better way to celebrate this day, than with an Ocean Defenders Alliance fundraiser!
What led up to this is that on the Big Island, we'd recently hauled 4.5 TONS of tires out of Kailua Bay. We garnered some good attention from that operation, but it was also costly even with our partners graciously donating our boats we operated on that day. This told us, we probably needed to think about some kind of money-generating event, rather than only money-costing events.
ODA Hawai'i hasn’t hosted any type of fundraiser in Hawai’i since we launched our work here in 2016, so it was a great time to do so.
Kurt Lieber with Sterling Leatherman
Step in, Kona Wine Market! Sterling Leatherman is the owner there and being a friend of the Milisens (Sarah is our ODA Hawai’i Island chapter leader), and knowing he ran a successful fundraiser for Maui disaster relief last year, we hit him up for a new partnership. Sterling is all about ocean conservation, having gone to school with Sarah’s husband Jeff Milisen in their Marine Option program at UH Manoa, the partnership was an easy one. In no time, Kona Wine Market was onboard to host ODA's first Hawaii fundraising event!
With a bouncy house, vendors, beer, wine, and delicious foods generously donated, Kona Wine Market rolled out the red carpet on June 8th for donors, volunteers, philanthropists, and curious onlookers. Food and wine pairings were donated by Blue Ocean Mariculture, Kona Wine Market's wine distributors, and beer from Maui Brewing Company. Live music was going from 1pm-6pm, with four different bands strutting their musical talents.
Be sure to enlarge the first photo of the bands and then you can scroll through!
A beer/wine garden adjacent to the musicians and silent auction inside made for a lot of square footage of Ocean Defender mingling!
The silent auction art made the inside of the Kona Wine Market a temporary photography exhibit of ocean life, with donors Bo Pardau, Doug Perrine, Ross Bronzan, Kelly Keene, Laura Roberts, and Marjorie Zensen displaying their beautiful works of art available to bidders to take home.
There were boat trips, hiking trips, a stay at the Hilton Waikoloa, yoga classes, and more in the silent auction, and by 6pm it was a frenzy of last-minute bidders fighting for artwork and adventure deals.
Food featured sustainable ocean-raised Kona Kanpachi from Blue Ocean Mariculture – with their chef Vitaly prepping and handing out delicious tastings from 2-7pm that day including: Kanpachi ceviche, an unctuous chowder, and abalone and oysters from the local NEHLA farms to boot. Here's Vitaly with his delicous creations:
Perfectly paired wines accompanied the food, and Jackie Rey’s offered complimentary pupus (appetizers) with champagne! Kona Wine Market donated raffle items for the food and wine pairing ticket holders, and all in all, everyone had a fabulous time of mingling, bidding, tasting, and drinking!
Sterling and his team, Jacqui, Ali, and Howard stepped up to run an amazing fundraiser. From Blue Ocean Mariculture’s donated chef and food to beer and wine vendors, a photo booth, bouncy house, and our ODA volunteers – the WHOLE community showed up in just the way that our Hawai’i community does – to help, support and lift us up to do better to help protect the ocean and land for future generations to enjoy. TOGETHER WE RAISED $11,077 from this fundraiser event!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THOSE WHO HELPED, HOSTED, BID, VOLUNTEERED, DONATED, AND WINED AND DINED at our first ODA HAWAI’I FUNDRAISER!
It was a blast, and we can’t wait for the next time. If you’re a Big Island company and you’d like to be part of this or someone who’d like to volunteer, please send us an email. We’d love to meet you!
