Redefining the Great American Novel

Featuring Kato Ha’unga

Special thanks go to: Kato Ha’unga To see more on her project, the Northern Lights Library, go to www.northernlightslibrary.com. Bristol Alliance of Companies www.bristol-companies.com Totem Ocean Trailer Express www.totemocean.com Carlile Transportation Systems www.carlile.biz Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski www.murkowski.senate.gov/public Airport Equipment Rentals For the donation of a forklift to move the pallets. www.airportequipmentrentals.com U.S. Navy Project Handclasp www.navy.mil/local/handclasp Countless Alaskans and Alaska businesses who donated books.

The copy and photos were provided by Bristol Alliance of Companies and Kato Ha’unga.

Major donors

Dedication

Kato Ha’unga certainly would have a long list (possibly long enough itself to fill up a book) of people and companies to thank for their help in making her dream come true. But honestly, we believe Kato is as near to a superhero as a mortal can get. For years, she steadfastly dedicated her time and money to collect nearly 50,000 books to send to her homeland. She had the dream of building a public library in a land that so recently had been devastated by a tsunami, to build a library for everyone in Tonga, a remote land whose people believe strongly in the importance of education. Kato’s vast energy and exuberant enthusiasm – and yes, persistent requests for books and other donations – will have a positive effect on the young and old living in Tonga. Generations will learn, be entertained and be inspired by what she has brought to the islands.

Thank you, Kato!

Table of ContentsDedication

Chapter 1: Kato Ha’ungaChapter 2: Project Handclasp

Chapter 3: Leadership AnchorageChapter 4: Shipping News

Chapter 5: TransportChapter 6: Tonga LibraryChapter 7: Future Plans

Media coverage

Sept. 29, 2009 Tonga and Samoan islands are struck with a magnitude 8.1 earthquake, which resulted in a devastating tsunami.

Oct. 5, 2009 Kato Ha’unga begins collecting books, gathering a handful from “free book” cart at the University of Alaska Anchorage bookstore. She intended to get a few together to mail to family in Tonga.

April 5, 2010 Kato is honored by the Alaska State Legislature for her dedication to the Northern Lights Library project, to be founded in Ha’apai, Tonga. She had collected 3,000 books.

June 20, 2012 A University of Alaska Anchorage publication features Kato and her efforts. She had collected 35,000 books.

Oct. 22, 2012 Kato is featured in an Alaska Dispatch story. She has collected about 45,000 books. The story catches the eye of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who connects Kato with the U.S. Navy and its Project Handclasp project, an aid program that could deliver the books from San Diego to Tonga.

Sept. 21, 2012 Kato begins a nine-month program called Leadership Anchorage, a program of the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Jan. 19, 2013 Joe Terrell, President and CEO of Bristol Industries, LLC, speaks at Leadership Anchorage, where he meets Kato and hears about her book efforts. Joe offers Bristol’s services to help transport the books to San Diego.

Jan. 22-Feb. 6, 2013 Bristol works to coordinate the logistics of getting the books into pallets and packaged for shipping. Bristol also coordinates with transportation companies Totem Ocean Trailer Express and Carlile Transportation.

Feb. 7, 2013 Missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints help move books from storage to Bristol’s South Anchorage shop to place onto pallets and ready for shipping. By the end of the day, the storage area is emptied.

Feb. 8-10, 2013 The last of the books, along with some artwork and shelving, is prepared for shipping.

Feb. 11, 2013 Carlile picks up the pallets, filling up a 45-foot trailer. The trailer is delivered to Totem’s facilities at the Port of Anchorage.

Feb. 22, 2013 Books are delivered to the U.S. Navy in San Diego.Late April 2013 The Navy ship carrying the books is scheduled for departure.June 12, 2013 Books are due to arrive in Tonga, amid great celebration!

Timeline

Kato Ha’unga has spent three years collecting books, all kinds of books: children’s books and textbooks, cookbooks, fiction, non-fiction, mysteries, romances, how-tos, you name it. She’s gathered nearly 50,000 books over those years. She stacked them in boxes and bags. She piled them into a storage shed, under her desk, in her car, at her house; wherever she could find a nook for a book.Gathering the books was the easy part. Getting them to their destination has been the challenge.The books are destined for Tonga, a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of Fiji and north of New Zealand. On a flat map, it doesn’t look that far, just across the International Dateline and a bit south of the Equator.In reality, it’s about 7,000 miles, half a world away.How would she get them there? Shipping or mailing would cost thousands of dollars. Donations? Spaghetti dinners at 10 bucks a plate? A big Luau?Then came a ray of hope.

Chapter 1Quick fact: Kato-Kakala Ha’unga was born in

Anchorage on Mother’s Day, May 10, 1983. She was raised by her grandmother and uncle in

Haveluloto,Tongatapu, Tonga.

Chapter 2

Ha’unga garnered media attention during her long book drive. And to any reporter who asked, she stressed that she needed help getting the books to Tonga. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski saw the story, and asked her staff to help. A staffer made a few calls, and learned the U.S. Navy has a program, called Project Handclasp, that does just this kind of thing. It’s a humanitarian aid program.Perfect! Ha’unga just needed to get the books to the Naval base. In San Diego. Way down in California. The distance narrowed, but still seemed insurmountable.

Quick fact: Tonga is the last remaining kingdom in the South Pacific. It is is home to about 105,000 people. It is made up of 176 islands, of which only 52 are inhabited.

The challenge was forefront in her mind while Ha’unga attended the January session of her Leadership Anchorage group, a nine-month program sponsored by the Alaska Humanities Forum that helps individuals develop leadership skills. Joe Terrell, president and CEO of Bristol Industries, was a guest speaker that day, talking about his leadership style in running a group of engineering, construction and environmental remediation firms. An avid reader, and husband to a librarian, Terrell offered Bristol’s services to help bridge the gap.

Quick fact: After graduating high school in Tonga, Kato returned to Anchorage and attended the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Chapter 3

The fairytale ending was in sight.Bristol tasked one of its logistics experts to work out the packing and shipping details. The communications department worked with two local transportation companies – Totem Ocean Trailer Express (TOTE) and Carlile Transportation Systems – to get the goods down the coast.

Chapter 4

Quick fact: Kato works at the TRiO Upward Bound Program, a federally funded program that helps first generation, low-income and disabled students pursue a college education.

Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints volunteered muscle power to lug boxes and boxes of books from a storage shed to Bristol’s South Anchorage shop. They stacked them on pallets and readied them for pick up. Carlile picked them up, filling a 40-foot trailer, and hauled the trailer to TOTE’s facilities at the Port of Anchorage.From there, TOTE transported the trailer to its facility at the Port of Tacoma, and handed the trailer off to Carlile, who trucked it down the highway to San Diego and the U.S. Navy.

Chapter 5

Quick fact: The U.S. Navy Project Handclasp is a global outreach program that transports donated educational,

humanitarian and goodwill materials on a space-available basis aboard Navy ships for distribution to foreign nation

recipients.

Kato Ha’unga is finally seeing a long-held dream come to fruition. She’s planning to fly to Tonga this spring to greet her books as they arrive from their long journey, and start their new life in a library donated by the Prince and Princess of Tonga.The work isn’t done yet. A devastating tsunami in 2009 damaged the building that houses the library. But Ha’unga is plotting that chapter too. She’s fundraising, with the help of United Way, to get enough money to fix the facility, getting it ready for generations of Tongans to read and learn to love books.She’s exploring ideas about bookmobiles and even boat-mobiles (book-boat-mobiles? She’s still working on the title). The goal is to get books to the people who don’t have access to the main library, like people living in rural villages and on nearby islands.

Chapter 6

Quick fact: Kato used her own funds to pay for the storage of the books, more than $8,000.

The ever-energetic, always smiling Ha’unga has collected books for so long. What will she do now?She’s thinking Tonga needs an art museum.

Chapter 7

Quick fact: To see more on Kato’s project, the Northern Lights Library, go to www.northernlightslibrary.com.

Video

Watch the video of Kato expressing her thanks for all the generous support that she has received throughout this portion of her endeavor.

You can watch Kato’s video on Bristol’s YouTube page at: http://www.youtube.com/user/bristolCS2

The Tonga book effort has gained great media attention. Below are some links to stories.

Alaska Dispatch ran it as the lead story Feb. 8.KTUU aired a short piece on its Friday, Feb. 8. Here’s a link to the written piece.The KTUU piece also played well on the “Local News” section of nbcnews.com

The KTUU story was picked up by the Associated Press and was found on websites across the United States, and beyond. Here are a few:

Houston ChronicleConnecticut Post

The Seattle PI Enquirer Herald (York, S.C.)

WSB Radio (Atlanta)Other media:

Alaska Journal of Commerce ran a photo and long cutline. The Northern Light, University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA).

The Paris Review linked to the UAA piece.Radio Australia held a long interview with Kato.

The piece mostly focused on her efforts to collect books and why, as well as growing up in Tonga.