Dance Hawaii Prez Maurice Morita gathered volunteers to set up three voting sites in East Honolulu for this Saturday's election. Except for East Honolulu's Dance Hawaii Kai members Stanley Akamine, Sam Aranio, Lani and me, all others were from Central Oahu's Dance Aliamanu. That's what I call team-spirited cooperation!
We all met at our first site (Holy Trinity Church gymnasium) at 7PM on Friday to learn how to set up the booths, arrange the registration tables, and the electronic voting devices. Maurice planned that it would take about one hour to accomplish each site. It was a terrific action of teamwork that got the Holy Trinity site done in 40 minutes.
With the onsite experience under our belts, all the volunteers headed for our next voting site, Kaiser High School cafeteria. It didn't take us long to set up this location but we did hit a snag. After setting up the booths according to the official map provided to us, on Saturday morning the voting officials wanted the booths relocated in the center of the cafeteria. No Big Deal since we had time before the site opened to the public at 7AM on Saturday.
The caravan of volunteers headed to Hahaione School cafeteria for the last stop and setting it up was much faster but then we were told that there was another site on the same campus that needed to be set up. It was a smaller room and less than the normal 24-25 booths that were set up at the other sites. So it was a snap.
Mission accomplished for Friday. Maurice then divided the volunteers into three teams of three's because some couldn't come to help during the Saturday morning call to be at the site by 5AM; one team for each site.
After the polls closed at 6PM on Saturday, Dance Hawaii volunteers showed up at all three sites to dismantle the booths, clean up the voting rooms and restrooms, and put the tables and furnitures back to their original position. A lot of sweat but it was an uplifting experience working behind the scenes alongside team-spirited friends and dancers.
