A lot of volunteer work, but not a lot of money, has gone into a state-led effort in Hawaii as part of a nationwide initiative to commemorate the founding of the United States 250 years ago.
The local effort assigned to a 19-member commission formed in early 2024 has led to a series of events around the state scheduled before, on and after the July 4 anniversary.
Events include Hawaii grade-school students who competed in a national contest expressing what America means to them, production and distribution of more than 100 America250 flags, and coordinating a planned mass reading of the Declaration of Independence at about 65 places around the state at noon on July 8.
Hawaii, however, won’t have a delegation from the commission participating in the Great American State Fair due to cost and staffing requirements. The 16-day exposition began Thursday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and was promoted as featuring exhibits from all 50 states and U.S. territories.
The Hawai‘i America250 Commission was set up by Gov. Josh Green at the direction of the state Legislature with no state funding, and has been led in part by several Hawaii residents whose ancestors fought in the American revolution or contributed to the patriotic effort to establish the United States of America in 1776.
Peter Young — a former state Department of Land and Natural Resources director, commission chair, and member of the Hawaii Society of Sons of the American Revolution — said Hawai‘i America250 secured $25,000 in contributions, including $20,000 from the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission.
“It would have been less pressure if we had a big appropriation,” he said. “But we didn’t. And so we got to work with what we have.”
The nationwide America250 initiative led by the federal government is supposed to be bipartisan, but there has been friction between the Republican-led federal government and state government in Hawaii dominated by Democrats in other areas of program funding.
State Rep. Diamond Garcia — a Republican elected after lawmakers passed a 2022 resolution urging the governor to form the commission but provided no funding — praised commissioners for their dedication but said legislative leaders and the governor didn’t give the mission much focus, in his view.
“It obviously wasn’t top of mind for them,” said Garcia (R, Ewa-Kapolei), the minority floor leader in the House of Representatives.
The governor’s office said in a statement that Green’s administration appreciates the work of the Hawai‘i America250 Commission and many community partners helping to mark the nation’s historic milestone.
“Decisions regarding specific events and activities have reflected available resources and priorities,” the statement said, “and the Governor is pleased that Hawaii is contributing to the commemoration in ways that highlight our state’s unique history, people and values.”
Thrifty programming
Young said the commission, whose members include representatives of the four county mayors and the governor’s office, largely tried to develop or participate in programs that had little or no cost.
The commission’s biggest expense was close to $12,000 to buy around 130 custom-made America250 flags.
The first 20 flags were bought using $2,000 of a $10,000 grant from the national commission. Later, another roughly 110 flags were bought using a second $10,000 grant from the national organization originating from Walmart.
Young said the flags were distributed to ROTC clubs at high schools and the University of Hawaii where they have been featured at sporting events and other ceremonies. About 30 flags were provided to the state, and each county headquarters building also flies an America250 flag from the commission. Local chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution also received flags to promote the anniversary.
Many of the flags have been featured in past events and will be featured in local Fourth of July parades.
The parades are annual events put on by other community organizations, and the commission aims to enhance participation. One parade, in Kailua, is expected to be the biggest, featuring 10,000 to 15,000 people, according to Young, who said the commission plans to send an America250 marching unit with seven color guards and 250 people.
The commission also is arranging to have a large America250 marching unit with a color guard in other Fourth of July parades, including one in Kailua-Kona where about 10,000 people are normally expected.
After the flags, the second-biggest purchase by the commission was 30,000 decorative magnets featuring the America250 logo for distribution at the parades and other Fourth of July events on every island, including county-sponsored fireworks displays.
Major event
One widespread semiquincentennial event organized by the commission is a mass reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8 simultaneously with people around the world coordinated by the national America250 organization.
This event, dubbed “Sharing the Spirit of America,” commemorates the first public reading of the 1,320-word document on July 8, 1776, outside the Pennsylvania State House now known as Independence Hall.
At least 526 locations globally, including on every continent and some inhabited Pacific atolls, are designated public group reading places, including about 65 in Hawaii mainly at public libraries, schools and county headquarters buildings.
The reading is to begin at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which is noon in Hawaii, and should take about 10 minutes. A map of the locations is at hawaii america250.org.
To promote this event, the commission prerecorded a video with 36 local participants reading sections of the document, including Hawaii’s governor and four county mayors. As of last week, editors were still working on the video, which the commission plans to feature on its website and on YouTube.
Another low-cost or no-cost way for Hawaii to join national America250 programming was the commission’s promotion of a student contest called America’s Field Trip.
The nationwide contest held this year and in the prior two years asked students from third to 12th grade to express in an essay or artwork what America means to them.
Young said the commission helped promote the contest in Hawaii public and private schools where a different local student placed second in each year and earned $500.
Fundraising difficulty
A major shortcoming of the commission was having to sit out the national fair despite efforts to participate.
State funding, Garcia said, would have been a worthy investment, similar to the support the state often provides for trade shows.
“We are the last state to enter the union,” he said. “We are the 50th star in the flag. We should be represented on the National Mall at America’s Great State Fair.”
Young said it was costing some other states $200,000 to $250,000 to participate in the 16-day event.
”We had multiple people looking all over to try to get money for that,” he said. “We could not get commitments for large amounts of money.”
The only America250 commemoration business partners listed by the local commission are Home Depot and Zippy’s.
Young said raising large donations in Hawaii was challenging, and he pointed to lingering public resentment over the U.S. role in overthrowing the Hawaiian Kingdom as one possible factor.
“There has been some sensitivity and recognition that some people may not want to celebrate (America’s founding),” he said. “But it is a moment in history that is worth commemorating.”
Young noted that Hawaii was not known to the western world when British subjects declared their independence from England in America where 13 colonies formed an initial piece of a new country. The sovereign Hawaiian government, Young also said, later drew on language in the Declaration of Independence when it began a shift in 1839 from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy long before the 1893 overthrow and annexation of Hawaii as a territory in 1898.
“If (Thomas) Jefferson didn’t write what he did, and if the Second Continental Congress didn’t approve … the Declaration of Independence, then we may not have had the same kind of declaration of rights or constitutions which were the first governance documents for the Hawaiian Kingdom,” Young said. “There’s a connection, and it’s not a bad connection. So, maybe not celebrate, but commemorate, acknowledging (American independence) was a historical event.”
Young said some of the people who helped establish America made sacrifices — including those who lost their lives — that benefit all Hawaii residents today.
“We, as Americans, have certain rights,” he said. “Other people don’t have those same kinds of rights we do, and those rights are because of what (the founders) did 250 years ago.”
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