Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - March 16, 2022

Proud skipper Kalenaku DeLima charts a course for her music school, intent
on improving the educational wellness of Hawai‘i’s youth while doing “good work for our community.”
Captaining a ship can be a daunt- ing task for just about anyone, but especially for those feeling
from pandemic regulations and pauses to “a lot of intricacies of business that I had to figure out,” the 30-year-old company leader and professional mu- sician has held on to the wheel while navigating her way through the ebbs and flows of her startup.
how to do any of this,” confesses De- Lima while moored inside her school with its symphony blue walls at Wind- ward Mall in Kāne‘ohe. “But looking back in retrospect, I find myself say- ing, ‘Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe I figured out how to do all of this!’”
was thinking that it would be the per- fect time because all of this was going to go away and everything was going back to normal.”
a bit nervous behind the wheel. Consider the recent travels of Kalenaku DeLima, who has admitted- ly experienced notions of self-doubt while skippering her own vessel. Eight months into her maiden voyage as a nonprofit founder, the president of the christened Kapena School of Music & Creative Expression on O‘ahu still shakes her head every now and then, surprised at her good fortune in keep- ing the fledgling operation afloat in
Her success can be credited to her sticktoitiveness, an often underappre- ciated quality of hers. But it could just as easily be attributed to a highly ded- icated crew, a well-respected family name and brand that she hoists proudly on her sails, and timely words of en- couragement and support from loved ones, including her anchor in life, fian- cé Kala‘e Parish.
Astonishingly, this brave soul decid- ed to launch her venture right in the middle of the pandemic.
Of course, when the conventional didn’t return immediately, she wisely adjusted her sails. To help her stu- dent vocalists learn proper singing techniques, for example, DeLima had large plastic barriers installed in private rooms so that the students’ masks could be briefly removed and “we could see how their mouths were moving.”
turbulent times.
But steadied the ship and maintained
“I guess it was the scariest time to open a business,” admits a chuckling DeLima, whose school began offering private and group lessons in vocals and instrumentation (‘ukulele, bass, guitar, piano) last July.
Today, the school boasts an en- rollment of about 250 students while registering six new pupils each month — impressive numbers when consid-
its course she has. Despite the constant beatings of waves against her bow
“One of the things I learned is there’s no handbook, no manual on
“But for me, I thought it was also the best time because it seemed like we were just coming out of COVID, and I
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Story by Photos by
BILL MOSSMAN LAWRENCE TABUDLO