Check Presentation by Aqua Resort Club

Aqua Resort Club will be making a very generous donation to Beautify CNMI during a happy hour presentation in their lobby this Friday, November 16, 2007 from 5-7 PM. The presentation will be made at 6:30. ARC will be providing some food and all drinks will be 50% off the regular price.

Everyone who has been involved with Beautify CNMI is invited to attend. Please come help us celebrate this generous donation.

Some of us are going to have dinner at the Seafood Night buffet afterwards. Dinner is $25 and includes some of the best seafood on Saipan and free beer and champagne.

A few more pictures from the Lighthouse

This picture epitomizes the Beautify CNMI! spirit for me. Here is a Chamorro-American, a Caucasian-American, and a Japanese National. One is a student, one is a doctor, and one is a businesswoman. Zach brought his mom, Juanita, and brother, Adam, Allison brought her children, and Aya brought her husband, Willie.

These three families come from different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, have children of different ages (Allison has babies, Juanita has middle schoolers, and Aya has college students), but they all spent hours ostensibly doing something that should have been somebody else's job...and they enjoyed every minute of it. How often do you see that happen?

Juanita, Zach, Adam, Aya, and Willie have volunteered several dozen times now (Adam and Juanita are approaching a hundred). They are such regulars at our events that they show up with their own tools. Even when Willie can't make it, he'll pack a special tool kit for Aya:

That is what Beautify CNMI! is all about. People from different walks of life, pooling their resources, and coming together on a regular basis to make this island a better place to live.

This was Allison's first time volunteering with Beautify CNMI! I hope to see her again...and maybe if she becomes a regular, Willie will pack her a special tool kit, too.

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday's painting of the Japanese Lighthouse:

The untiring volunteers of Friends of the Mariana Islands were at the cleanup yesterday. Their leader, President Marites Castillo, was fighting the flu yesterday, but she still managed to show up. They brought tools, water, and food to share with the rest of the volunteers.

Bree Reynolds was also there. This picture belongs to the Blackmail Series:

$125
Bree brought her husband Doug, and several students from Hopwood Junior High School.

Jim Highfill, the Khorrams, Roch from Aqua Resort (volunteering for the first time), Ken Kramer, a group of Japanese tour guides from R&C Tours, Cinta Kaipat, Gus Kaipat and some of the boys were also there.

I'm sure I'm missing someone...and I'm sorry if I forgot to list you! Check out Aya's blog and Cinta's blog to see if they got everybody.

This is a good idea

A local hotel is promoting locally raised food and donating some of the profits to a local environmental coalition. I think that's pretty cool.

Let's all go to Aqua Resort this Saturday night to support local shrimp farming industry and Beautify CNMI! Call Yoshimi at 322-1234 for reservations.

One Year Anniversary Fundraiser

Hafa Adai Beautify CNMI!

It's April and that means that Earth Day is right around the corner.

Every year on Earth Day you hear people say, "Let's make Every Day Earth Day." Well, I am proud to be able to report that in the last year, the people of the CNMI did just that. Whether it was planting trees, picking up litter, cleaning up illegal dump sites, reading to school children about proper pet care, working on projects related to the Micronesia Challenge, promoting recycling, getting rid of junk cars, or even just reading about all of the various Beautify CNMI activities on the Internet, environmental stewardship and volunteerism was front and center all year.

This Earth Day, let us look back on all that we have accomplished in the last 12 months. I have been going through our events from the last year, adding up the trees planted, the pounds of trash removed, and the number of volunteers that helped to Beautify the CNMI. The numbers are staggering. Over 100 different community groups, schools, government agencies, and businesses have contributed to the success of Beautify CNMI! Our volunteers number in the thousands...not quite ten thousand, but pretty close.

Usually Earth Day is a day where people make empty promises to recycle more or to join a beach cleanup sometime in the future. Not this year. This Earth Day the CNMI will be able to look back and be proud of our weekly beach cleanups, our many tree plantings, the litter control officer trainings, the tree care workshop, and our crowning event, 1020 on 10/20, where over 3000 people came out to improve Saipan on a single day.

This is reason for all of us to celebrate. I would like to extend an invitation to you to do just that at the Beautify CNMI First Anniversary banquet on Friday, April, 20 at Aqua Resort (see attachment). The day after Earth Day we'll get back to another year of great work, but until then, let's bask in all we have accomplished. Congrats everyone!

Angelo

P.S. If you have any questions, please contact me at 483-1078

March 10, 2007 Cleanup of Isa Drive From NMC to San Vicente Elementary

Beautify CNMI!'s proud partners FMI and Aqua Resort's FMB team led the cleanup which started at the traffic lights at NMC all the way to the entrance of San Vicente Elementary School. Although non pictured, other cleanup participants included Dennis Cabrera (of Rep. Kaipat's Office) and family, and Bud Kaipat and family. Great job team!

Thank you, Aqua Resort Club!

Aqua Resort has extended their Beautify CNMI! promotion until the end of September. Thank you!

Several (OK, more than several) Beautify CNMI! volunteers went out to Aqua last night for Mongolian BBQ night. I'll post more pictures later!

Mongolian BBQ Night

Aqua Resort has an ongoing fundraiser for Beautify CNMI! at their Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday buffets.

Wednesday night is Mongolian BBQ night. Locals who enjoy the buffet will receive a 10% discount. Aqua Resort has pledged to then donate an additional 10% to Mariana Islands Nature Alliance (MINA) in support of Beautify CNMI! activities.

Not only will you have the chance to eat some of the best food in Saipan while enjoying bottomless draft beer, but you will get to do so while donating to a worthy environmental cause.

Just a reminder...

...that the MINA/Beautify CNMI promotion is ongoing at Aqua Resort. Locals who enjoy the Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday buffets will receive a 10% discount on their meal and Aqua Resort will donate an additional 10% to MINA to support Beautify CNMI! activities.

The buffets feature bottomless Miller Lite draft beer and champagne and some of the best food in Saipan. Eat, drink, and help Beautify the CNMI!

Another Busy Weekend (I'm getting tired of saying that...but not really)

Let's see if I can get this all straight:

On Saturday morning we had two cleanups; Pala Potu, MOVER, Rep. Kaipat's office and family, MINA, and RC&D beautified Tun Kioshi Rd while MVA and Red Cross beautified South Lau Lau Beach.

Later that day, while RC&D's Ken Kramer and Angelo Villagomez led a group of NMC college students on a field trip to the Laulau Revegetation Project Site, community volunteers Nina Rivera and Barrett Ristroph led the Kagman High School National Honor Society and other students in a village Trick or Trash Recycling event. The students roamed the streets of Kagman, knocking on doors in search of cans, bottles, glass, newspaper, and cardboard.

The 58 students collected a total of 330 lbs of recyclable material and sold the aluminum cans for $28. They will use the $28 to pay for drinks and maybe food for their next event.

Also on Saturday, Mariana Islands Nature Alliance had a retreat for their board members at Aqua Resort facilitated by The Nature Conservancy. Thank you Aqua Resort for the meeting space! The retreat helped the participants become better board members.

On Sunday, the Pala Potu group continued their beautification of Tun Kioshi Road while MOVER, Rep. Kaipat, ISA CNMI, and others beautified the road connecting the Francisco C. Ada Airport to Coral Ocean Point. They removed 920 lbs of illegally dumped trash.


We continue to draw in new partners. One of the teachers at Saipan International School is encouraging her students to go out and volunteer with us. She helped us recruit our newest volunteers, pictured above. This was their 3rd volunteer event in 8 days with Beautify CNMI!

...and let's not forget Gus Kaipat, our fearless photographer. Gus takes just about every group picture, so he's never in any blog posts. Today Gus gets his own picture.

Our schedule of volunteer events is always available online. Click HERE to view it. If you would like to add your event, please email or call Angelo Villagomez.

This coming Saturday we will be beautifying Mt. Tapachou Road and on Sunday we will be back in the Garapan Tourist District. CNMI POWER will be participating in their first cleanup of the area; they have adopted the area on the other side of Beach Road. Visit our calendar of events for details and contact info.

Eat, drink, and Beautify the CNMI!

Every local who enjoys the three buffets pictured above at Aqua Resort Club between now and April 1 will receive a 10% discount. For every local diner, Aqua Resort Club will donate an additional 10% of the meal to the Mariana Island Nature Alliance to support Beautify CNMI! projects. As if enjoying great food while you donate to protect the environment wasn't enough, each of the buffets features bottomless draft beer.

Does life get any better than that?

The discount applies Wednesdays and Fridays from 6:30 - 9:00 and Sundays from 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM.

Eat, drink, and Beautify the CNMI!

Saipan Tribune, Monday, January 15, 2006

ARC donates 10% of food sales to Beautify CNMI!

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

The Aqua Resort Club is donating 10 percent of its dine-in sales to the environmental campaign group, Beautify CNMI!

ARC sales manager Yoshimi Kodama spoke in front of the members of Beautify CNMI! during its monthly general meeting last Thursday. Kodama said the premier hotel in the Achugao area is aiming help and assist the group through this promo.

Kodama said local residents that would be dining inside the hotel's Costa Terrace Restaurant would be able to indirectly donate to the cause of the environmental group. She said that each dining person from the CNMI for the hotel's buffet would provide 10 percent of the revenue for the group.

She said the promo is good for buffets on Wednesdays with the hotel's Mongolian BBQ from 6:30pm to 9:30pm. Also on Fridays with their Seafood Night Buffet from 6:30pm to 9:30pm and Sundays with their Champagne Sunday Brunch from 11am to 2pm. The promo ends in April. Local discounts apply to the local dine-in guests, she added.

Kodama added that the hotel would be turning the donations over in April. She said the donations would be given to Beautify CNMI! through the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance group, also a partner of the Beautify CNMI!

The Beautify CNMI! group acknowledged the plans of the hotel during its general meeting last week. The members commended Kodama and the hotel in its pursuit of providing more environmental awareness in the CNMI, also for promoting the group.

“We at Aqua Resort Club, Saipan, are committed and will establish our status as one of the official sponsors of Beautify CNMI!,” said Kodama.

In October 2006, the hotel donated $200 to MINA, a partner of Beautify CNMI! that was one of the beneficiaries of the Ari Onishi Green Concert Dinner Show, also held in October.

Kodama earlier said that the Ari Onishi/Green Concert Dinner Show was an evening of enchanting piano music and a full course gourmet dinner that aimed at raising funds for environmental organizations and activities, including Beautify CNMI! Ari Onishi is a singer/songwriter from Japan and has performed with many celebrities in the past.

Enjoy Sunday Brunch and Support Beautify CNMI!

Enjoy Sunday Brunch at Aqua Resort and Support Beautify CNMI!

Aqua Resort is offering a 10% discount to all locals who enjoy their Gourmet Champagne Sunday Brunch in January, February, and March. In addition to the 10% local discount, Aqua Resort is donating another 10% from the price of each brunch to Beautify CNMI!