Why support Mark and Shayla?

The number one reason is the beauty and quality of their work of course, but along with their personal career passions, Mark and Shayla share an insatiable desire to support their community and spend a large portion of their time doing just that. Rest assured, your purchases of Fine Art support two people giving back to the community

all the time.  Fired up by an immense gratefulness for their wonderful Maui community, they donate many hours a week helping the ‘aina’ (land) and the ‘kama’aina’ (children of the land- i.e. ‘locals’) around them.

Shayla started her path of community service very early when she was granted the honor of being an international scholar and ambassador of International Peace and Understanding through Rotary International Youth Exchange. At only 15 years old, Shayla was selected out a very talented group of individuals to be awarded the high honor of becoming a ROTEX student to study abroad for one year. She was sent to a small rural village in the southern region of Luzon, Philippines. Shayla spent her junior year of High School in Tayabas, Quezon where she was moved ahead a grade and studied as a senior at Luis Palad Provincial High School. She graduated with the class of 1982 with honors. Spurned on by the immense learning's that accompany such a magnificent journey, Shayla knew that one day she would ‘give back’ in a manner as meaningful as was given her that wild and wonderful year…

Upon moving to Maui, Mark and Shayla became involved with the Ho’alohaaina group (Friends of the Land) and the amazing and inspiring duo of Bob and Lis Richardson. They began to clean up the Kihei boat ramp lands adjacent to the ocean, removing rubbish such as rusted out appliances and old junk cars. This effort snowballed into the community awareness and the ‘then’ President of the Rotary Club of Kihei-Wailea, Mark Harbison became very interested in offering a helping hand from Rotary. His diligent efforts led to a partnership grant with Rotary, Ho’alohaaina, and Hawaiian Tourism Agency for a massive ‘face lift’ of the boat ramp including bench seating, a large picnic area, and even wheelchair accessible picnic tables.
It was a natural progression for Mark and Shayla to join the Rotary Club of Kihei-Wailea as Bob and Lis were newly inducted and natural leaders. Mark and Shayla found a ‘home’ amongst this very dedicated and active Rotary Club. Mark is the President of the Rotary Club this year, leading the organization of 60 community leaders in helping dozens of efforts both locally and internationally.  See the nitty gritty details and catch some great speakers Mark has on the Rotary website at  www.RCKW.org

Mark dedicates his skills as a photographer to Rotary projects, but more importantly, he lends his significant ‘brawn’ J for the many manual jobs required to improve our ‘aina’. Mark also donates his many web design and computer programming skills to numerous charity organizations beyond the reach of just Rotary. Mark donated his time and talent to many causes such as the aforementioned Ho’alohaaina, Kihei Youth Center, Kihei Community Center, and his site ‘Pump Don’t Dump’ created the community awareness that commercial boats were dumping their daily human waste in our pristine coastal waters.
Shayla found ‘home’ again with Rotary, and became the International Chair for three years. In 2006, Shayla spearheaded a major matching grant for Lucena Welfare Complex, Quezon, Philippines. This unique welfare complex serves over 1,000 people in need a week- including orphans, disabled, elderly and infirmed. This grant provided a much needed fresh water tank, furnishings, beds, and a full kitchen for two orphan childrens dorms that was lying empty for lack of funds. What started as a simple request for a $5,000 water tank blossomed with so much local support to a $38,000 grant that included all the furnishings to house over 60 children whom previously lived on the streets. Nearly a dozen of these newly housed orphans were only 3 years old. This welfare center will now be able to provide a home for these children until they are 18 years of age…
Changing lives profoundly, yet another passion of Mark and Shayla’s! Mark and Shayla used their own money to personally visit this Welfare Complex, located just 20 minutes away from where Shayla spent her ROTEX year abroad. After 26 years away, Shayla went back to Tayabas and greeted old classmates and foster families, while also on her mission to view the completion of her major matching grant.

The grant’s execution was so perfect that our heads were put together on how we could join hands again to make this Complex even better. The year 2008 sees a new major matching grant submission to Rotary Foundation, this time the sum will be over $50,000. We plan to build another water tank, this time to support the other sectors of this unique Complex. We are supporting the elderly center with an outlying health clinic and adult day care for the elderly; we are providing much needed wheelchairs, etc to the disabled sector; we are furnishing yet another dorm- this time for boys in conflict with the law.
Our first matching grant so inspired this community that one local wealthy donor paid to rebuild a burnt out building that used to house the young boys in trouble with the law (they need to be kept separate from the other boys and girls). This new building was blessed this past August- our grant will once again furnish this dorm with beds, kitchen and living room items like we did for the boys and girls in 2006.

What a blessing to have the opportunity to serve others in such meaningful ways… these are just a few of the things Mark and Shayla put their time towards when not ‘clicking the shutter’ on Maui and beyond. Won’t you join us and gaze along with us through the ‘Window to Paradise’… Thanks for listening to our story. Mahalo nui loa!