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Scholarships help Lahaina graduates afford to attend college outside Hawaii a year after wildfire

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Scholarships help Lahaina graduates afford to attend college outside Hawaii a year after wildfire
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Scholarships help Lahaina graduates afford to attend college outside Hawaii a year after wildfire

2024-08-01 12:09 Last Updated At:12:21

HONOLULU (AP) — College was the furthest thing from Keith Nove Baniqued's mind after her family's home burned down in a deadly wildfire that decimated her Hawaii town. The 17-year-old, who was 7 when she moved to Maui from the Philippines, was about to start her senior year of high school but shifted her focus to her family's struggles to find a place to live amid the tragedy.

Nearly a year after the fire that destroyed thousands of other homes and killed 102 people in historic Lahaina, Baniqued is headed to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And her family doesn't have to worry about how to pay for it, thanks to $325,000 in college scholarships awarded Wednesday to 13 Lahainaluna High School graduates attending schools on the U.S. mainland.

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Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with family members during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with family members during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued applauds alongside father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued applauds alongside father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued poses with father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued poses with father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Emily Hegrenes poses with her scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Emily Hegrenes poses with her scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii President Keith Amemiya, left, after a scholarship presentation Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii President Keith Amemiya, left, after a scholarship presentation Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Talan Toshikiyo, center, stands by little sister Taleah Toshikiyo and school college and career counselor Ginny Yasutake as he opens his scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Talan Toshikiyo, center, stands by little sister Taleah Toshikiyo and school college and career counselor Ginny Yasutake as he opens his scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

“Even being a senior, I really didn’t know if I was going to pursue higher education anymore, only because I didn’t want to leave my family in the situation that we were in,” she recalled of her feelings after the fire.

Her school survived the blaze, but was closed for two months. The reopening restored a small sense of normalcy and reignited her dream to attend college beyond Hawaii's shores. She also realized a college degree would put her in a better position to help her family's long-term recovery.

She applied to colleges with nursing programs, channeled her feelings about surviving the fire into scholarship essays and decided she would attend UNLV — partly because its popularity among Hawaii students would make it feel a bit like home.

Using a grant from the Maui Strong Fund of the Hawaii Community Foundation, the Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii is providing Baniqued and her 12 classmates with about $25,000 each — meant to cover out-of-state college costs after other scholarships and financial aid for the first year.

“A lifechanging opportunity like this can be beneficial to any Hawaii high school graduate, and even more so for Lahainaluna graduates and all they’ve gone through,” said Keith Amemiya, president of athletic club, which has been spearheading a fundraising campaign to support the Lahainaluna student-athletes and coaches whose homes were destroyed by the fire.

In a separate effort after the fire, the University of Hawaii announced scholarships for 2024 Lahainaluna graduates to attend any campus in the statewide system. Nearly 80% of a graduating class of 215 applied to UH campuses, according to school data. As of last week, 105 students had registered at a UH school, leading to a record-number of college-bound Lahainaluna graduates, school officials said, who expect that number to increase by mid-August.

Ginny Yasutake, a Lahainaluna counselor, reached out to Amemiya to see if there was a way to do something similar to the UH scholarship for student athletes who opted to leave Hawaii for college.

With help from the Hawaii Community Foundation, they found funding to help even students who weren't athletes. Both organizations are committed to finding a way to provide the scholarships beyond freshman year of out-of-state college and also to underclassmen affected by the fire, Amemiya said.

“These scholarships kind of came in as a last-minute dream," said Principal Richard Carosso.

And the Hawaii scholarships provided an opportunity to many who never thought college was even possible, he said.

Pursuing college highlights the resilience of a graduating class whose freshman year of high school was disrupted by the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carosso said.

Emily Hegrenes, headed to the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in her scholarship essay about how she had to find a way to train as a swimmer because the Lahaina Aquatic Center was closed in a restricted burn zone.

“But for my final high school season, I worked harder than ever to recruit enough swimmers to hold team practice at a pool forty-five-minutes away from my hometown," she wrote. “With my Lahaina cap on, I proudly dove straight into my fears.”

Talan Toshikiyo, who plans to attend Oxnard College in California, said he aspires to become an engineer and attain financial stability because it was already difficult for Native Hawaiians like him, and other locals, to afford living in Hawaii before the fire.

“I hope Lahaina is not changed when I come back from the Mainland,” he wrote in his essay. “I dream one day all the rent in Maui will be lower so locals will be able to afford it and not have to move far far away.”

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with family members during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with family members during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued applauds alongside father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued applauds alongside father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued poses with father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Keith Baniqued poses with father Johnny Baniqued during a scholarship presentation in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Emily Hegrenes poses with her scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Emily Hegrenes poses with her scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii President Keith Amemiya, left, after a scholarship presentation Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduates pose with Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii President Keith Amemiya, left, after a scholarship presentation Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Talan Toshikiyo, center, stands by little sister Taleah Toshikiyo and school college and career counselor Ginny Yasutake as he opens his scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

Lahainaluna High School 2024 graduate Talan Toshikiyo, center, stands by little sister Taleah Toshikiyo and school college and career counselor Ginny Yasutake as he opens his scholarship announcement in the school's library Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Matthew Thayer)

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Cold snap chills New York City's rats, and heats up the fight against them

2025-01-23 13:04 Last Updated At:13:11

NEW YORK (AP) — This week's frigid weather has many New York City residents shivering, scurrying into cozy spots and feeling sapped. Including the rats.

The United States' most populous city has been spared the Upper Midwest's extreme wind chills, not to mention the shock of record-breaking snow in the deep South, in this week's Arctic blast. But temperatures peaked Monday around 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 Celsius) and roughly 20 degrees (-7 Celsius) Tuesday and Wednesday, well below average.

Such cold has, yes, a chilling effect on the Big Apple's notorious rodents. But it boosts efforts to get rid of them, says city “rat czar” Kathleen Corradi.

“It's stressing out rats. It’s putting them in their burrows,” she says. “So we kind of get to double down now while the rats are ‘feeling the heat’ from this cold snap.”

New York City's wild rat species — Rattus norvegicus, also called the Norway rat or brown rat — doesn't hibernate in winter but does become less active when the weather is freezing for prolonged periods. At the same time, the rodent's food source tends to shrivel because people are out less and therefore discarding few food wrappers and other rat snacks on the streets, Corradi said.

All that makes for stressed rats and suppresses breeding, which “is really their superpower,” Corradi said. Norway rats can reproduce many times a year, essentially any time conditions are suitable, though they tend to be most prolific from spring through fall.

Jason Munshi-South, a Drexel University ecology professor who has researched New York City's rats, said those that are already holed up in subway tunnels, sewers, crawlspaces or other nooks can weather the cold fairly well.

Rats that haven't secured a hideaway might venture to unusual places, such as car engine blocks. Or a tempting basement? Perhaps, if building owners haven't diligently blocked them out.

But Munshi-South said some of the animals likely will freeze to death, especially if they're already sick, malnourished or otherwise weakened.

“Harsh winters like we are having so far will keep the rat population at a lower level if we have sustained cold, freezing periods,” he said in an email.

All of that, Corradi said, allows the city's rat-fighters to make headway ahead of the warmer months.

There's no official count of New York City's rats, but no one disputes that they have long been legion. Successive city administrations have tried various approaches to eliminating or at least reducing them.

Current Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has battled the critters at his own Brooklyn home, created Corradi's position — officially, the director of rodent mitigation — about two years ago. Adams' administration also has focused on requiring trash “containerization,” otherwise known as putting household and business garbage into enclosed bins instead of piling refuse-filled plastic bags on the curb.

FILE - A rat is seen in Central Park in New York, Sunday, March 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

FILE - A rat is seen in Central Park in New York, Sunday, March 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

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