The Hawaii - New Zealand Connection
Two years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Yorck in Sydney at the Childnet Awards. It is through this friendship I met the Gardner family who have spent nearly a year living in nearby Tauranga, New Zealand. Jack Gardner taught at Punahou School in Honolulu and Taimane was a student of Wilcox F! Look at how this connection has benefited an area very special to me.
Last Friday this article appeared in the Bay Of Plenty Times ...
PARENT Elva Gardner helps Year 8 pupils from Saint Mary's School practise their song and dance on protecting Tauranga's estuary.
Pupils to be heard on radio
By Deidre Mussen
| A TAURANGA school
pupils' song on protecting the estuary will soon hit the airwaves after
impressing a radio station.
Classic Hits plans to professionally record the fun song by Year 8 pupils at Saint Mary's School after hearing them perform it yesterday. "It's pretty exciting," teacher Janet Mc Carroll said. |
The pupils wrote and
composed the song to celebrate Seaweek. It focuses on what they
love about Tauranga's sea.
Saint Mary's School, in 13th Avenue, has the estuary on one boundary. One of the parent's, Elva Gardner, helped with the choreography, giving it a Pacific flavour. |
She is originally
from Samoa but lived in Hawaii for many years, teaching Hawaiian dancing
there.
The song and dance was created for an Enviro-Expo, which was to be held at Tauranga Primary School yesterday for Tauranga Schools. But it's organiser, Environment BOP, cancelled the expo |
because of
withdrawals from schools.
Instead it will be run in Conservation Week in August. But the show had to go on. Saint Mary's pupils performed instead to a large audience at their school yesterday. |
Created by Lynne Ralph