Star-Bulletin
This is a 1940s view of the Richards Street
YWCA. The center opened in 1927.

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The Oahu YWCA:
97 years of helping

Its centennial fund-raising
campaign begins

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

Left with nothing after a divorce, retired actress Ruby Diamond, 60, moved from a homeless shelter to the YWCA Fernhurst Transitional Housing a year ago.

Vickie Hoffmann, 49, doesn't make enough from two part-time jobs to pay rent. After six months of sleeping on the beach, the former computer programmer and teacher also moved to Fernhurst.

And Lavette Johnson, 34, who just finished her nursing degree, is living at Fernhurst with her two daughters until starting her new job.

"I'm just trying to get situated and set up," Johnson said.

Since 1900, Oahu's YWCA has been helping women in transition who need time to get their feet replanted. The organization kicked off its centennial fund-raising program yesterday in anticipation of turning 100 in three years. Gov. Ben Cayetano hosted a reception for Alexine Clement Jackson, president of the YWCA's U.S. national board.

Three YWCAs with a total 6,000 members are located in Hawaii on Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. Like the 359 YWCAs nationwide and 90 national organizations around the world, the Hawaii organizations carry two mandates: empowering women by making them self-sufficient, and ending racism.

"We try to help them get to the next place in their lives," said Susan Au Doyle, executive director of Oahu's YWCA.

Some of the major services on Oahu are providing transitional housing at its Fernhurst and Rockcliff shelters; helping women find employment through job training and its women's resource center that opened in April; and connecting women to other community services.

About a thousand women a year on Oahu seek temporary refuge at the YWCA from domestic violence, poverty, homelessness and illness. Many also stay there while between jobs.

The nature of the transition as well as the job training has changed over the last century. While in earlier years the YWCA mainly helped job-seekers of more means and education, it now serves a broader range of women.

"It's the same theme but the subject matter is different . . . Domestic violence wouldn't be talked about 100 years ago," Doyle said. "In 1910 it was very radical to offer typing classes to women. But now we're more into the construction trade and nontraditional occupations."

Other services offered by the YWCA are child care and youth services; social development, art and other education classes; swimming, health and fitness; and camping and conferences for adults and youth.

Bette Takahashi, a YWCA member on Oahu for more than 30 years, feels the local organization has done especially well in fighting racism, its other mandate.

"Our boards are representative of the whole community," said Takahashi, a past Oahu board president and an honorary national board member.

Doyle said the Oahu YWCA has offered "learning circles" on Hawaiian sovereignty and looked more at diversified cultures.

"Just getting to the point that people are willing to talk about race is a difficult thing," Doyle said.

Doyle said the three-year centennial campaign -- "100 Years of Empowering You" -- will focus on raising funds to refurbish Oahu facilities, including the historic downtown YWCA building built in 1927 and designed by well-known architect Julia Morgan. The YWCA members at that time raised the funds for the building in one week.

"They were very visionary women," Doyle said. "We're very inspired by them." Funds will also go to refurbish the YWCA's Camp Kokokahi along Kaneohe Bay.

On Kauai, where Jackson visited Tuesday, the YWCA focuses mainly on providing shelter for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse as well as offering counseling and training for both victims and perpetrators. The Kauai YWCA, 76 years old, offers many such services through state contracts. The Big Island has a big child-care program.

"On a national basis, the YWCA is the largest provider of shelter to women and children and of child care," said Kauai YWCA Executive Director LaVonne Pironti. "It's logical that we are very involved in social issues that affect women."

The YWCA was conceived in London in 1855 after the Industrial Revolution triggered a mass movement of women workers from farms to cities. The women needed housing and job training. The first American chapter started in New York City in 1858.

Named the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States, it grew to be the oldest and largest women's organization in the world, Jackson said, and serves people of all religions and races.

In its mission to uplift all women, the YWCA realized in the 1920s that it had to eliminate racism, and the goal was voted a mandate at the 1970 convention, Jackson said. The organization hired the first black woman in its national headquarters in the early 1900s.

"We've always been at the cutting edge of integration," Jackson said.

Jackson said Hawaii symbolizes the multiracial focus of the YWCA.

"Oahu is a living example of the global movement."