The Right to Chart Their Own Course
How the Community Scholarship Fund empowers students to imagine what’s possible
More than 1,000 years ago, Polynesian voyagers crossed the Pacific, guided by their knowledge of the stars, winds and currents. Driven by an unwavering belief in what was possible beyond the horizon, their journey brought them home to Hawaiʻi.
Today’s students are charting journeys of their own. Like the voyagers who came before them, they are embarking on a future they cannot predict. Their aspirations serve as guiding stars, yet the winds and currents they encounter often lie beyond their control.
At Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, we believe every student deserves the right to chart their own course and that every journey is strengthened by those who help carry us forward. This is why we launched the Community Scholarship Fund, which emerged from reimagining our scholarship approach to better reflect today’s learners.
Supported by the generosity of donors, the fund’s broad requirements enables the delivery of flexible funding responsive to evolving student needs. As Hawaiʻi’s cost of living requires many students to balance school with employment and other responsibilities, such as caring for loved ones, pursuing a degree can become increasingly difficult. This fund ensures that those realities do not determine their future.
Through community engagement, youth voice initiatives and HCF’s Youth Participatory Action Research Fellowship, HCF has learned that the best solutions aren’t created for students, but alongside them.
Empowerment begins with possibility, and possibility begins with support. Investing in Hawaiʻi’s students means providing them hope rooted in opportunity. We are not defining their path or where they choose to land. We are creating the space for them to discover it. The space to see what is possible beyond the horizon.
