The Sharie and Kenneth Hamai Memorial Fund

Supporting Children & Families

The Sharie and Kenneth Hamai Memorial Fund was established to honor their commitment to education and to support children and their families who are beginning their educational careers at Montessori Community School (MCS). Two of their grandchildren, Alan and Laura Nakata, were MCS graduates and their daughter, Lisa, was an elementary teacher until her retirement in 2019.

Growing up in the 1920s in Moiliili, Sharie, one of 10 children, left school after the 8th grade to help her parents at home. Kenneth, the son of barbers in Chinatown, graduated high school and went straight to work for the Hawaii Times, a Japanese language newspaper in downtown Honolulu. Without the benefit of higher education, they were both determined to provide their family with the advantages they never had.