At 11 months and counting, parish youth groups across the state are vigorously raising funds to go to World Youth Day next July in Australia

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Though World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, isn’t until next July, Hawaii parishes have been organizing groups, fundraising, and planning their trips to the Land Down Under for many months.

More than 100 from Hawaii are going. Ninety have signed up to travel with the official diocesan group, which will be accompanied by Bishop Larry Silva, the first time a Honolulu bishop will attend World Youth Day. Several other Hawaii church groups are traveling separately.

Patty Kaluau, the diocese’s World Youth Day coordinator, said registration is still open and that the international gathering “is going to be huge.”

World Youth Day was started in 1986 by Pope John Paul II. While it is celebrated every year on the diocesan level, an international celebration takes place every two to three years and is considered the largest youth event in the world. The pope usually attends, and the culmination of the gathering is a large outdoor Mass presided over by the Holy Father.

More than 500,000 people are expected to attend World Youth Day from July 15-20. This will be the first time Pope Benedict XVI has traveled to Australia.

Pope’s encouragement

Pope Benedict has designated this year’s theme to be “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.” (Acts 1:8)

On July 4 at his general audience, he told the youth in attendance that World Youth Day is more than an event.

“It is a time of deep spiritual renewal, the fruits of which benefit the whole of society,” Pope Benedict said. “Young pilgrims are filled with the desire to pray, to be nourished by Word and Sacrament, to be transformed by the Holy Spirit.”

“Some of you have friends with little real purpose in their lives, perhaps caught up in a futile search for endless new experiences. Bring them to World Youth Day too!” he said.

“In fact, I have noticed that against the tide of secularism many young people are rediscovering the satisfying quest for authentic beauty, goodness and truth,” the pope continued.

Pope Benedict, in his official message on World Youth Day released in English on July 24 said, “Together we shall invoke the Holy Spirit, confidently asking God for the gift of a new Pentecost for the church and for humanity in the third millennium.”

The fun of fundraising

It isn’t cheap to travel to Australia for a week. The basic package costs $2,179 and if you want to stay at a hotel, it’s $2,848. The cost goes up if a pilgrim wants to go on an optional side trip to the Australian Blue Mountains or New Zealand’s South Island.

So Hawaii groups have been pulling out their scrub brushes, making leis, planning dances and golf tournaments, and even manning parking booths, to pay their way.

A group of about 20 people from St. Michael Parish in Waialua and Sts. Peter and Paul Mission in Waimea on Oahu’s north shore are planning the trip with Sacred Hearts Father Johnathan Hurrell and Benedictine Sister Celeste Cabral. To raise money, the group has been asking for a $5 donation per car from beachgoers who park on weekends in the Sts. Peter and Paul Mission lot across the street from famed Waimea Bay.

Karl Sandbo, one of the group’s coordinators says that they have already made about $18,000, thanks in part to the church being strategically located by three beaches that often don’t have enough parking.

“We’re really blessed to have this fundraiser,” he said, adding that the group works in two shifts of six people each Saturday and Sunday so that no one has to work too long collecting money and guiding cars. That leaves plenty of time for group fellowship. Those that have a summer break have been manning the booth on two weekdays.

The Molokai Catholic Youth Ministry is sending around 20 people to Sydney and is working to cover the cost of the 10 teenagers who will be going. Parent volunteer Jersula Manaba, who is bringing her son Bronson, 13, says that the youth “decided that it’s a big opportunity, not to meet just other people but also to see and maybe meet the pope.”

The group has been tackling multiple projects including making and selling metal recycling baskets, along with the typical car washes, rummages sales, and pizza and candy sales. A Masquerade Party is planned for October and a golf tournament for next January.

Molokai Catholic Community religious education teacher Alicia Bicoy said of the fundraising, “You name it, we’ve tried to do it.” Her two daughters, Ayla, 17, and Dohna, 14, will be going to Australia.

Bicoy says that while it has been difficult fundraising on such a small island, especially with the parish also trying to raise money for a new church, the group remains optimistic. “This is not just about trying to get to Australia,” she says. “This is about your spiritual life.”

Bicoy said that Jerome Kalama, a Molokai resident who has been to Australia several times on paddling trips, came to one of the youth group’s meetings to show photos and share a little about Australian culture, which “made it a little more real for the kids.”

The Molokai contingent has also been learning more about Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne and will be learning a hula and ukulele number — adults included — so they can share their Hawaiian culture and history with people they meet at World Youth Day.

Another group that will be traveling with the diocese is the Tongan Society at St. Augustine Parish in Waikiki. Eight people are registered to go and a handful more might still register, according to Sauliloa Tuihalafatai, 25, who is one of the group coordinators, along with her sister, Uhena, 24. Both will be going to Sydney next summer.

The Tongan group sells flower leis after weekend Masses, plans to sell raffle tickets every month until next April, and is working on a Christmas dance.

St. Catherine Parish in Kapaa, Kauai, is sending 17 people and started fundraising a few months ago, selling homemade sweet bread, holding car washes, and collecting aluminum cans and recyclables.

One of the parish groups organizing the trip on their own, outside of the diocesan group, is St. Rita Parish in Nanakuli, who will send 35 plus 10 from neighboring Sacred Heart Parish in Waianae.

Nani Reyes, St. Rita’s youth minister, said, “They thought, when would they get another chance to go to Australia?”

She said the group decided to organize their own itinerary because of a planned stop in New Zealand for a week of cultural exchange. St. Rita’s pastor Father Alapaki Kim has traveled there several times for conferences and suggested the added stop.

“We know where we want to go,” Reyes said. “Now we start fundraising.”

The St. Rita/Sacred Heart group recently held a Jamba Juice sale and its first car wash and plans to hold two car washes a month until next June. It is also planning two major huli huli chicken sales, a kalua pig sale, plus sales of Cinnabon’s, Mike’s Bakery items, and cookies and candies.

According to diocesan coordinator Kaluau, Big Island churches St. Benedict in Honaunau and St. Joseph in Hilo are also sending people through the diocesan group.

Local celebrations

Can’t go? You can join the pilgrims in spirit at events planned by the Office of Diocesan Services at St. Stephen Diocesan Center. The events will coincide with the main World Youth Day events in Sydney, July 18-20.

Director Walter Yoshimitsu and his secretary Paulette Gomes have been brainstorming ideas with Franciscan Sister Marlene Miller, the director of religious ministries for Kaneohe Marine Corps Base Chapel.

A proposed schedule includes events like those to take place in Sydney, including catechesis classes, a song fest, sports events, fellowship, liturgy, nightly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and an outdoor Stations of the Cross led by various parishes.

“We’re all part of the same mystical body and even though we can’t go there we should celebrate in our own little communities that oneness we have,” Sister Marlene said.

She has helped plan similar events for other dioceses in the past and hopes that people who have gone to an international World Youth Day before will share their stories and “spread the spirit that they captured when they were at World Youth Day” with people at the diocese’s event.

Gomes says the diocese plans to have its own version of the World Youth Day Cross, which travels around each World Youth Day’s host country for a year before the event.

The Diocese of Honolulu’s “cross” will be a banner with all the parishes’ names on it in the shape of the cross. The plan is to have the banner visit each of the nine vicariates and lead the procession at a World Youth Day Awareness Mass each month, starting with a kick-off Mass on Sept. 1. The banner will then be taken to Australia by the Hawaii pilgrims.

International preparations

If Hawaii groups think it’s tough organizing people and raising money, it is hard to imagine what the World Youth Day organizers in Sydney must be dealing with.

The Australia group recently called for thousands of Sydney residents, to volunteer for the HomeStay program and host two or more overseas or non-Sydney pilgrims in their homes. Among many other responsibilities, coordinators are also seeking 8,000 volunteers to help with events and are overseeing the travel of the World Youth Day Cross throughout Australia since it arrived there July 1.

Organizers ran into trouble this past July over the use of Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, where the World Youth Day vigil and papal Mass are to take place on July 19 and 20. The Randwick Trainers Association complained that use of the field would interrupt training and racing and threatened legal action to stop use of the racecourse. The dispute was eventually resolved.