Investing In The Future
In 2022, Maya Ploi Blasi of Lahaina was homeless, living in shipping containers and a car while finishing her senior year at Hāna High and Elementary School. But that same year, she received the Maurice J. Sullivan Scholar Award, a $10,000 scholarship from Hawai‘i Rotary Youth Foundation. Today, Ploi Blasi is a graduate of University of Colorado, Denver. She has bachelor’s degrees in international studies and music recording arts, a minor in economics, and a certificate in global and intercultural communication.
Ploi Blasi is one of the many scholars — 2,044 to be exact — to have her life changed by HRYF. Since its inception in 1976, the foundation has awarded $8,553,313 to deserving students across Hawai‘i.
Fifty years later, the organization is still going strong and sticking to its mission — helping students pursue higher education. HRYF will be celebrating this milestone anniversary on Sept. 10 with a celebration in the Ala Moana Hotel Hibiscus Room. There will be food, music and fun. HRYF will introduce its 2026 scholars and honor the donors who helped make the scholarships possible. The main purpose, though, is to raise funds to create more opportunities for Hawai‘i’s future leaders. (Visit
hawaii-rotary-youth-foundation.square.site for more information and to purchase tickets.)
“My passion is the youth and this is such a rewarding position I find myself in,” says HRYF president and vice chair Geoff Horvath, who is also a member of Rotary Club of Wahiawā-Waialua. “I’m very blessed to be able to do what we’re able to do for the youth. The Rotary motto is ‘service above self.’ And so, that’s how we live our lives.”
HRYF was founded by Maurice “Sully” Sullivan when he was Rotary’s district governor in Hawai‘i.
“He had a passion for educating our local youth and he realized they didn’t have that much of an opportunity for higher education,” says Horvath.
There are $5,000 scholarship awards for graduating seniors who submit applications to a Rotary club that is near their school or home. (Hawai‘i currently has 53 Rotary clubs.) After applications have been submitted, each Rotary conducts club-level interviews and selects one $5,000 scholar. The selection is based on academic achievements, involvement in campus and community activities, employment experience and financial need. Top scholars then go through another round of interviews to determine who will receive HRYF’s two $10,000 scholarships — the Maurice J. Sullivan Scholar Award and the Joanna Lau Sullivan Scholar Award.
The Maurice J. Sullivan Scholar Award was established in 1998 to honor Sully’s memory and is awarded to a student attending a four-year university on the mainland. The Joanna Lau Sullivan Scholar Award, named in honor of Maurice’s wife, was established in 2008 and is given to a student attending a four-year university in Hawai‘i.
“My parents were especially committed to supporting education because they understood firsthand how profoundly it can shape a person’s future,” says HRYF chairperson Kitty Wo, daughter of Sully and Joanna. “Neither had the opportunity to attend college, and my father did not have the opportunity to attend high school. They had to put aside their own educational aspirations to work and help support their families.
“My father sometimes wondered how much further he might have gone with more education, and I think that stayed with him. They wanted young people to have opportunities and choices that had not been available to them. That is one of the reasons the work of the Hawai‘i Rotary Youth Foundation has always felt particularly meaningful to me.”
Horvath, who is serving his second term as HRYF president, says the nonprofit makes it a point to reach out to high schools in low-income areas to ensure students there have an opportunity to apply.
“The thing that stands out to me is how these students can be so involved in school and community and still maintain a high GPA. A lot of them are from stressful situations (low income and single-parent households),” he says. “I tear up when I think about it because it’s just so special to allow these students to improve their lives.”
This year’s $10,000 scholarship winners are Abiyana Moore and Arlen Noguchi. Moore lives in Mililani and was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Mililani Sunrise and graduated from Mililani High School. She will be attending University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business to pursue a bachelor’s of science in business administration with a minor in international studies on a pre-law track, then plans to go to law school.
Noguchi lives in Hilo and is a Waiākea High School graduate sponsored by the Rotary Club of Hilo. He will attend Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, to pursue a joint major in computer science and climate studies.
This year, for the first time in its history, HRYF gave out two Maurice J. Sullivan Scholar Awards, as both Moore and Noguchi had selected four-year universities on the mainland.
Horvath says his favorite thing about HRYF is “the privilege of helping other people and the privilege of giving our young students the chance to make it in the world.
“In turn, they come back, they get into the community and give back,” he shares.
A prime example is 2021 HRYF scholar recipient Aiesha Pradhan. Pradhan graduated from Maui Preparatory Academy. She recently graduated from Cornell University last May with a degree in biology and society with minors in business and health policy, and hopes to be a physician in Hawai‘i in the future.
“I felt very grateful and I was so excited,” Pradhan says of receiving the scholarship. “I was just extremely grateful that it eased the financial burden for myself and my family.”
Since graduating, she’s moved to O‘ahu and is gaining clinical experience in the healthcare industry. Pradhan has also come full circle. Now a Rotarian herself, she is the youth service chair for Rotary Club of Honolulu Sunset. (She was the president of her high school’s Rotary Interact Club and a part of her local Rotaract in Ithaca, New York, when she was in college.)
As youth service chair, she now coordinates the HRYF scholarship for her Rotary club, where she reaches out to local public high schools and college counselors to inform them about the scholarship and helps conduct club interviews.
Being a Rotarian means everything to Pradhan.
“I think their motto, ‘service above self,’ truly embodies how I want to live my life and how I want to carry myself,” says Pradhan. “It’s what drives me into my daily life and my career aspirations. Rotary has done so much for me. It’s changed my life … I think Rotary really taught me that I needed to give back to the community that raised me.”
The 2027 HRYF scholarship will be available in November. Those interested in applying can visit
hawaiirotaryyouthfoundation.org and click on “2027 Oahu or Neighbor Island Scholarship Packages.”
“The impact of each scholarship reaches far beyond the student who receives it. It can change the trajectory of a life, open doors to new opportunities, and ultimately benefit families, workplaces and communities,” says Wo. “I am proud to say that the Hawaiʻi Rotary Youth Foundation has created that ripple effect across Hawaiʻi for 50 years.”
