In the infantry of our Hawaii Jeep business we knew when it came to living the aloha life that if you take of Hawaii...you must give back to Hawaii! At HAWAII JEEP & SPECIALTY TOURS it's our top priority to making the smallest footprint on our Earth & educating our guests on how to preserve and protect our island home. We did that by building our 501(c)3 environmental nonprofit organization 808 CLEANUPS!
808 CLEANUPS has been committed to restoring Hawaii’s natural beauty by empowering volunteers to conduct decentralized cleanups from mauka to makai, responding to littering and vandalism of Hawaiʻi’s natural spaces, saving Hawaiʻi’s indigenous ecosystem through education, and building sustainable solutions with community partners.
808's vision is to enjoy a world with clean and safe beaches, hiking trails, and natural spaces without encountering any evidence of human littering or graffiti tags on any natural surfaces. 808 envision a society that cleans and maintains the land and sea so that reactive cleanups become obsolete, allowing us to focus on long-term environmental restoration and education.
808 Cleanups was built around the following core values:
Land Stewardship:
808 doesn't just care about the environment a couple of days a month; we live, breathe, and sleep a true commitment to maintaining the beauty of this state that we are fortunate enough to call our home. That means we practice what we preach – we don’t litter, we don’t vandalize, we recycle, we don’t waste natural resources, and we try to use sustainable products whenever possible. It also means we pick up litter when we see it, we remove graffiti if we witness it, and we educate about the environment when people negatively impact it.
Self-Motivation:
808 Cleanups is an organization of action, founded by the desire to meet a need we saw that wasn’t being addressed. We didn’t sit around and wait for someone else to fix the problem – we rolled up our sleeves and asked others to do the same. Our dedicated volunteers are empowered to take the initiative and organize their own cleanups and environmental efforts without approval and oversight. Our role is to support, not control – and we are blessed to have hundreds of volunteers who have answered the call to action.
Innovation:
We are always looking to the future to find innovative and forward thinking best practices and ideas that support our mission and vision. We encourage all volunteers to not only share their ideas with us, but to think of ways these ideas can be implemented (see Self-Motivation above).
Respect:
As residents of Hawaiʻi, we expect everyone to portray the Aloha spirit in all forms of 808-communication, whether that is onsite at a cleanup or through our social media pages. We respect the rich diversity of our volunteers and will not tolerate any disrespect in regards to race, nationality, religion, gender, age, or orientation. We also respect and honor the practices of our host culture, partnering with the Native Hawaiian community to restore and preserve important place names and sites important to their heritage.
HOW WE FORMED...
We are lucky to live in Hawaiʻi. We have a lot to be thankful for, whether it is in the beauty of nature or in the kindness and generosity of the culture. However, not everything is perfect here. Five years ago, we began noticing an increase in natural surface graffiti tagging, littering, and pallet bonfires, which can leave nails in the sand. Many would just look and say “what a shame”, or maybe post about it on social media. We saw this as an opportunity to do something about it and create a support network for volunteers to tackle these problems. We created 808 Cleanups to stand up, take action, and make Hawaiʻi cleaner, safer and stronger.
We created 808 CLEANUPS by putting volunteers in the pilot seat. For many years the people of Hawai'i had been taking action on litter and tagging on their own in small groups. 808 CLEANUPS gave them a place to come together so that we could support what they needed. When you hear “someone else will handle it”? 808 Cleanups volunteers are those “someones” that handle it! 808 CLEANUPS support these ECO WARRIORS by providing supplies, connecting them with other volunteers and helping them organize their own cleanups.
2020 HAWAII JEEP & SPECIALTY TOURS will be working DIRECTLY, hand and hand, with 808 CLEANUPS with our VOLUNTEERISM ECO JEEP TOURS...
With HAWAII JEEP & SPECIALTY TOURS it's always been about our dedication to teaching Environmental Education, Community Responsibility, Local Culture, Island Values, Well-Being, and the Aloha Spirit through Aloha Aina, the love of our land. We want to bring a heightened sense of urgency to the local community and the tourism industry. We want to ensure that people respect the air, land, water and other scarce and sacred natural resources that make life sustainable here in Hawai’i.
Our philosophy behind our VOLUNTEERISM Tours are not only personal, private and fun, but educational. It's about merging the business with the nonprofit and making the smallest footprint on our Earth. It’s about educating our guests on how to preserve and protect our island home, leaving Hawaii in better shape than when the guest landed on the islands. This allows our guests to build a sense of community while here and a stronger bond and connection to these islands when they leave.
Guests today want to feel special and be treated like royalty, but they also want to have a sense of ohana, make lasting friendships and improve Hawaii while here...Crowded Buses and Vans are out, it's about a private and personal service that guests are looking for today, a connection between the guide, guest and the aina...a friendship where trust, safety, fun and adventure awaits down the road less traveled. We pride ourselves on the "leave no trace" concept. When we enter small communities in our Jeeps we are never noticed by the community...we are a part of it and our guests sense that. Our desire is to show our guests the true Hawai'i nei in an intimate way, not herd them around like sheep, on strict time frames. We'll get the guests personal with the aina and they will not only leave Hawaii in better shape than when they found it, they will be making memories and friendships that will last a lifetime.
If you are interested in giving back to Hawaii please join 808 CLEANUPS or if you can't join a cleanup locally, please consider donating to an amazing cause to save Hawaii! Also look for our ECO VOLUNTEERISM JEEP TOURS in 2020 where we'll be donating 35% of the Eco tours to the nonprofit!
Comments