As a high school senior, Bree was one of just two students chosen to represent Hawai‘i at the United States Senate Youth Program and to receive a college scholarship, which provided a special opportunity to meet President Barack Obama, Senator Daniel Akaka and other notable individuals. Since then, Bree’s endeavors have brought her to ALU LIKE where we have been a part of her growing list of accomplishments, first as a participant in our ClassRoom Training (CRT) program and now as a worksite supervisor and resource for our community. She is now a college graduate, a wife, a mom, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist – her business, www.keaukahageneralstore.com, now has its own scholarship program! Here is a statement that she recently submitted:
“ALU LIKE was so helpful and proactive in helping to ensure I had the assistance and guidance that I needed. I was grateful to be a recipient of ALU LIKE assistance and graduated college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and a Certificate in Women Studies. During college, my mom and I opened up a small store, Keaukaha General Store in Hilo. We worked tirelessly to understand how to get our little store up and moving, and reunited with ALU LIKE, specifically Mike Dias who has been helpful throughout my education and now helpful in our business. Since reconnecting with ALU LIKE, we are now a part of the ALU LIKE job-training program, where we do employment and training programs with students. We have had many participants that have done employment and job-training programs with us and some of them still work with us today, while others went away to college or embarked on their careers. We are blessed to have reunited and connected with ALU LIKE so that we can work together to not only help the keiki and haumana of Hawai‘i, but to reconnect to learn more about how we can make our business better to serve our community of Keaukaha the best way that we can.”