The Beautify CNMI "Beauty Virus" Is Alive And Well

Thanks to Aya-san and Willy-san of Isa CNMI for keeping the Beautify CNMI "Beauty Virus" alive and well!

Gus and I got our niece and nephews together and headed up to the Last Command Post in Marpi, Saipan, this bright Sunday morning for a cleanup with Isa CNMI and 200 visitors from Japan. They are members of the Nenpoushinkyou group in Japan. They say they have 800,000 members. WOW!

I put together this slide show of the day's events. The first 100 or so pictures were taken of the cleanup.

The last pictures are of the first blooming flame tree of the group we planted on lower Dandan Road (the road leading up to Dandan from the Welcome/Adios Sign). We planted these trees last year, and now one of them is already blooming!

The last pictures are of the road sign on Tun Kiyoshi Road.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in to help. Isa CNMI's Aya-san and Willy-san Matsumoto led the effort with Beautify CNMI and her coalition partners MVA, PDI, Tasi Tours, RC&D, PEW, and community members. In addition to Gus and I and our niece Sheena Saures and nephews Peter Saures, Franklin, Josiah and Jun Lizama, other community members who were there included Juanita Fajardo and her niece Breana and nephew Vince.

Once, again, thanks to everyone for a fine job! Arigato-gozaimasu!

FMI gets Earth Team Volunteer award

Marites Aquino Castillo, president/chairwomen of the volunteer group known as Friends of the Mariana Islands (FMI), and Angelo O'Connor Villagomez were recently presented the Earth Team Volunteer Award and Certificates for their environmental efforts.

Castillo received two awards, one for herself and the other one for the FMI Group's activities.

Villagomez's's genius is as a grass roots organizer, while Castillo's Group, the FMI, provided the muscle and backbone for the Earth Team Volunteer activities with over 6,000 volunteer hours so far in 2008.

Castillo and the FMI Group performed miracles by volunteering to clean up the roads and beaches of Saipan. Their goal is to maintain the environment for the benefit of everyone in the CNMI. Their motto is: “Do it whole heartedly and expect nothing in return except from your self.”

According to Castillo, the FMI group began consistently cleaning up of roads and beaches in June 2006. Since then they have cleaned up Lau Lau Beach every third Sunday of the month, which now amounts to 23 consecutive months of activity.

During these same months on every second Sunday they were also cleaning up ISA Drive Rd. from the Saipan Botanical Gardens to the stoplight Intersection that leads to Northern Marianas Colleges.

The FMI has also worked other weekends beautifying other parts of Saipan.

When asked, “How can your group possibly do this much work?” Castillo replied: “The Friends of the Mariana Islands Earth Team Volunteers get a great feeling of pride for the work they do for the environment of Saipan.”

She cited the help of other individuals and groups who have contributed to FMI's cause. “Thanks to former Rep. Jacinta M. Kaipat, Angelo, and Mr. Ken [Kramer] for their motivation and assistance in helping us keep Saipan beautiful.”

“I hope that people will know, appreciate, and remember that it was and will be the hard work of Friends of the Mariana Islands Earth Team Volunteers that helps make Saipan a cleaner and more beautiful place to live! Let's all work together and keep this island even more beautiful!”

Beautifying With Nihon University

Aya-san and Willy-san Matsumoto invited me and other Beautify CNMI! partners to join Isa-CNMI and Nihon University students in a beach cleanup at Aquarius Beach Hotel. I was there with my staff, Dennis Cabrera, Angelo Villagomez of RC&D and MINA, and FMI President Marites Castillo at 7 a.m.
We armed ourselves with gloves and trash bags and fanned out.
Honda-san (far right) of ISA-CNMI leads a group.
And everyone was off and running.
The group made their way towards the Sugar Dock and then looped around.
We ended up right back where we started. We had a short presentation of gifts.
Aya-san, who is a board member of MINA, presents the group with a MINA t-shirt.
Marites and I presented them with a Beautify CNMI t-shirt.
I presented them with a Beautify CNMI! bag.
And then we took the obligatory group shot and shouted -- 1, 2, 3 -- Beautify CNMI!
There was also time for one last photo. Aya-san Matusumoto, Sensei Koshiro, me, and Marites.

Arigato Gozaimasu! Si Yu'us Ma'ase! Olomwaay! Thank You!

I left the beach at 8:10 and rushed home to get ready for my meeting with the SWAT team who is looking at overhauling our entire workfrorce training system. The meeting started at 9 a.m.

I arrived there about 9:10, just in time for the slide presentation of HB 15-38, my labor reform bill. The presentation went well; it was well received.

Then I had to leave at 11:15 to head up to the Hachiman Jinja for a luncheon meeting. The Nihon University students met us there, as seen in the photos below.

Rep. Cinta Kaipat
www.cnmiblog.com

Lighthouse Gets Face Lift

Today was a good day. I got to see a bunch of my Beautify family members, some of whom I haven't seen in weeks. We got together to paint over the graffiti on the old lighthouse on Navy Hill. Click here for Angelo's excellent "before" and "after" shots which show some dramatic improvements.

Also click here for Aya-san's excellent post detailing some of the actions that had gone on today.

Bree and Doug Reynolds were there. . .














. . .as were some Student Action for a Viable Environment (SAVE) Club members like Ann, Zoe, Yoshi, et al. This is like a jr. Beautify CNMI! Club. Way to Go Guys!
It was nice to see and joke around with some of the leaders and supervolunteers of Beautify CNMI -- Angelo, Ken Kramer, Tess and the FMI Gang. . .











. . . and, of course, Adam, Juanita and Zack, our favorite supervolunteer family! Adam even brought a friend from San Vicente School!








Aya-san and Willy-san were there as well. . .









. . . and we got to enjoy our oishi bbq lunch with our partner R&C Tour members.

It was also great to see new friends from Aqua Resort join Beautify.

Of course, I had my own crew with me: Gus, AJ, Franklin and Willy Boy.

Thanks for stopping by!

Note: Unfortunately, I didn't see my friend Dr. Dave Khorram and crew earlier or I would've gotten a picture of them and they were too quick for my camera when they stopped by briefly in the afternoon. Sorry, Dave!

Rep. Cinta Kaipat
www.cnmiblog.com

36 Flame Trees Planted in Koblerville

Beautify CNMI has several long term goals. We want to promote Ecotourism in the CNMI (there is currently no Ecotourism here), we want to restore and promote many of our historical landmarks (i.e. the Japanese Jail and the Lighthouse) as tourist/historical sites, we want to reduce illegal dumping and littering, and we want to create an interconnected system of parks and trails.

One of those parks is going to be located on top of the old airstrip in Koblerville, currently the site of the Koberville Youth Center and Substation.

We started work on this project last year. We took an overgrown old abandoned airstrip littered with trash and grafitti and simply started cleaning.

We mowed the grass. We got rid of the weeds. We painted over the grafitti.

We've kept this up for almost a year.

Last month, with the involvement of several government entities, we helped open up the Koblerville Youth Center. For almost a month now, we've participated in Family Fun Night, held at the Youth Center every Friday night for the residents of Koblerville.

Little by little, we are getting people to use the park and we are continuously improving it.

Yesterday morning we planted 36 Flame Trees along the street. They are small now, but in a year they will be over 10 feet tall. In three years they will be tall enough to provide shade.

About six months ago I asked one of the Mariana Island Nature Alliance members, Brad Doerr, to start growing Flame Trees. I told him that I didn't have money to pay him then, but by the time they were tall enough to plant, I would.

I came up with an Adopt-a-Flame tree program. For $20 via cash, check or paypal, anyone in the world could purchase a Flame Tree. I promised the adoptee a certificate and a picture of their tree posted on the Internet along with the GPS coordinates of their tree.

I use the money to purchase the trees, soil, flagging tape, shovels, and whatever else we need to get the trees planted. Then I recruit volunteers to help me plant the trees and invite the people who adopted the trees to tag along.

Yesterday I had help from Ken Kramer, his mom, his wife and two kids, Missy and Jim Highfill and their kid, Rep. Cinta Kaipat, Gus Kaipat and his 30-40 nephews, Marites Castillo and the Friends of the Mariana Islands, Captain Carl and his two shipmates, Neta and Flurina, Brad Doerr, and Laura Williams and her son Caleb.

All it took for us to get these 36 trees planted were 26 tree planting volunteers (including myself), a little pre-planning on my part to ensure that we would have Flame Trees to plant during the rainy season (coordinating with Brad), and 36 generous donors to spend $20 to adopt a Flame Tree. In getting the trees adopted, we also had help from everyone who helped us man our booth at the Flame Tree Arts Festival back in April and MINA, which takes care of Beautify CNMI's finances.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that planting these 36 trees was a community effort. Probably well over 100 people had a hand in coordinating the planting, from making sure that we had trees, shovels, soil, finances, water, snacks for volunteers, to getting people to adopt the trees, to actually planting the trees, and so on and so on.

Thanks to every single one of you who helped out. These 36 trees are a significant contribution to the community of Koblerville. In 5 years, we'll all be able to say that we had a hand in providing shade, beauty, and cooler temperatures to the residents of Koblerville.

One last thing, Cinta told me to get in the group picture, so I did this:

Need bags this week?

Hafa Adai Everyone,

I'll be off island this week attending a Micronesians in Island Conservation Retreat in Majuro. If you need any garbage bags or gloves, I've left some at the RC&D office in Garapan. Just contact Ken Kramer at 236-0893. If that supply runs out, there are more bags and gloves at the MINA office. Just contact one of the Board members and they can get them for you.

Do you like the new banner? In honor of our new stickers (which should be ready this afternoon!) I went ahead and changed it.

Beautify CNMI! isn't just a cleanup group. We also support recycling, good legislation, and of course, conservation.

Have a great week everyone,

Angelo

P.S. I'll post pictures of Majuro on The Saipan Blog

Coming soon to an RC&D near you!

Part of my NFWF grant pays for publicity materials. We finally got around to ordering them this week. They should be ready next week.

We are purchasing 170 canvass bags that look like this:

Our slogan this year has been, "what we do on the land can affect our marine environment." These bags will help people understand how garbage, litter, and recycling affect our coral reef ecosystems, especially our turtle populations.

We are also ordering 650 bumper stickers and a 10' x 4' banner that look like this:

The bumper stickers will do the same thing...plus they are pretty.

2007 Flame Tree Arts Festival

That's not trash: Beautify CNMI partners promoted recycling at this year's Flame Tree Festival.

The Arts Council graciously donated a tent to Beautify CNMI! at this year's Flame Tree Arts Festival, the largest festival of its kind in Micronesia. Using recycling bins borrowed from Division of Environmental Quality, Beautify CNMI promoted aluminum can and plastic bottle recycling during the four day event.

Student Volunteers: Volunteers from San Vicente Elementary, Koblerville Elementary, and Hopwood Junior High School helped Beautify CNMI man the tent.

Volunteers from Marianas RC&D, Mariana Islands Nature Alliance, Rep. Cinta Kaipat's Office, Hopwood Junior High School, San Vicente Elementary, Koberville Elementary, and Friends of the Mariana Islands helped Beautify CNMI! staff the tent from the opening to the closing cermonies of the festival. Thanks to everyone who helped out!

The Tree Guys: Angelo Villagomez and Ken Kramer of Marianas Resource Conservation & Development Council (RC&D) pose with some of the Adopt-a-Flame Tree trees. RC&D hosted a tree care workshop in January and leads the tree planting activities of Beautify CNMI.

The Flame Tree Festival was the perfect opportunity for Beautify CNMI! to kick off the Adopt-a-Flame Tree program. Beautify CNMI! partner Marianas RC&D planted Flame Trees along Beach Road last year, hosted a tree care workshop for CUC, DPW, and Parks & Recreation earlier this year, and plans to continue the replacement of the missing and/or dying trees along Beach Road. At this year's festival 13 Flame Trees were adopted. They will be planted a the onset of the rainy season.

The cost to adopt a Flame Tree is $20. If you or your business would be interested in adopting one or several trees, please contact Angelo Villagomez.

Super Volunteers: (right to left) Angelo Villagomez, Susan Macario, Jerry Tan, and Cinta Kaipat pose for a photo.

We also sold T-shirts, buttons, stickers, and MINA annual memberships. In total we raised $748. These funds will support Beautify CNMI! programs in the upcoming year. Tan Holding's Shirley's Coffee Shop donated $260. They purchased three Adopt-a-Flame Trees, a MINA corporate membership, and donated $100 towards the purchase of a trash trailer for our cleanups! Thank you Shirleys!

Earth Team Award Winners: We handed out individual certificates to all of the MOVER members who helped us win an USDA Earth Team Group Award.

In addition to fundraising and recycling, we also had a few meetings. The Animal Welfare Committee met inside the tent on Thursday to discuss the upcoming National Pet Week and Boonie Dog Pet Show. On Sunday we presented MOVER members with their individual certificates for winning the 2006 USDA Earth Team Group Award.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us this weekend!

Aye Yai Yai! Paging Mr. Roland Quitugua!

How did we get from this...

... to this?

Well, I'm certainly no expert, but the Tree Care and Tree Trimming Workshop that Beautify CNMI! and RC&D co-sponsored taught me where to look first for the problem and this is what I found...

Our Ace Instructor, Mr. Roland Quitugua of RC&D Guam, was right when he said that bushcutters (as wonderful as they are on weed) are the biggest menace to plants. Here are some devastating effects of this tool wreaked upon these once thriving daok trees that Beautify CNMI! volunteers planted at the Grotto last year.



This highlights the importance of continuing our training in workshops such as that which was recently conducted by Roland Quitugua and which was attended by Beautify CNMI!'s coalition partners RC&D, CUC, DPW, DLNR Forestry and Parks and Rec., and my (Rep. Kaipat's) Office.

Education and awareness are crucial to our ability to avoid repeating these same mistakes that tend to undermine our efforts to help make this a much better place to live and visit. I know that the fellas who took the recent workshop do get it and see the importance of teamwork. Let's get everyone else on board, shall we?