I will never forget the first time a physician told us our child might not make it through the night. It wouldn’t be the last time a healthcare expert told us that. Preston is the second oldest of our five children. When he was young, he was diagnosed with a kidney disorder that required ongoing treatments. His frail, little body would often balloon in unusual shapes as he retained fluid, and a common cold could send us racing to the hospital.

Pacific Islander students said they were devastated after learning they couldn’t travel back home to celebrate Christmas with their families. Due to COVID-19, students said they plan to celebrate the holidays virtually with loved ones.

Cinema and the City, the newest film course at BYU–Hawaii, will be taught by Professor Mason Allred in Winter 2019 on Tuesdays and Thursdays in hopes of bringing the concept of how film can bring people together.

With a troubled childhood including the splitting of his family, gang involvement and criminal activity, sophomore Jeremy Hawkins said he was lead from Utah to Samoa to get a fresh start. After several years in Samoa, Hawkins said he turned his life around, served a full-time mission for the Church, found internet fame, and developed a deep love for Polynesian people and their cultures.

People Are Awesome, a video-based social media project, has gathered almost 600 million views on its YouTube channel and is the leading platform for sharing clips of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, according to its website.

Brooks Haderlie, the archivist at BYU–Hawaii, said the University’s archives have a great responsibility not just to preserve history, but to preserve culture. “We are trying to be very careful because the materials we have are important, and we want to keep them for people to have access to for as long as possible,” he said.

A BYU–Hawaii alumnus in graduate school, the director of the Library and the Center for Academic Success, and a BYUH senior, shared tips on how to better handle another remote semester of classes. Their recommendations included good time management, self-discipline and taking breaks after studying.

BYU–Hawaii students shared how they utilize Mutual - the LDS Dating app - as a form of entertainment amidst social distancing protocols. They said online dating has become one of the few outlets for social interaction during the pandemic.

BYU-Hawaii student’s eyes are open to the power of social media in the wake of a massive fundraiser for New York schools by the creator of Humans of New York.Humans of New York photo-blogger Brandon Stanton raised over one million dollars in less than a week for underprivileged youth at Mott Hall Bridges Academy, a middle school in Brooklyn. Over 38,000 individuals helped to fund the project for youth in one of New York’s roughest neighborhoods, donating from $1 to $100, according to NBC News. Melinda Pike, a BYU-H alumnus, said, “With the click of a button, we can tell everyone we know about a friend who is in need of help. With the click of a button, they can donate or share their resources in order to help.”Stanton and Humans of New York broke the Indiegogo record for most funded project in the history of the site and they did it in record time. Yahoo News reports the money will be used to fund three different programs at the school for the next decade: a Harvard trip, a summer program, and an annual scholarship for one outstanding scholar.Yahoo News reported principal Nadia Lopez as saying, “This is a neighborhood that doesn’t necessarily expect much from our children, so at Mott Hall Bridges Academy we set our expectations very high. We don’t call the children ‘students,’ we call them ‘scholars.’”Stanton has been receiving a lot of publicity from supporters all around the nation; even President Obama has recognized the Humans of New York blog. He recognized the good the blog and its supporters has done for underprivileged New York Schools.Pres. Obama recently met with the Principal Lopez and Vidal Chastanet, a student from the school from whom the inspiration for the Indiegogo project came. According to Humans of New York, Pres. Obama was inspired by the work of Stanton and the positive outlook on life Lopez was instilling in the children. He invited Stanton, Lopez, and Chastanet to the Oval Office and offered some advice and words of encouragement: "Usually life is not a straight line. We don't do things alone. Nobody does things alone," Obama said. "Everybody always needs support. You'll have a lot of people supporting you out there. You just gotta make sure you seize those opportunities." Reif Tauati, a senior studying computer science from the Big Island said, “The internet was the most important invention in the last 200 years. Good people use this connectivity to bring like-minded people together in a way that was impossible in every other age since the beginning of time.”Pike added, “We saw with the A.L.S. challenge how powerful social media can be for good. It is when we hear empowering stories of social media being used as a tool for good around the world that we realize its true potential. It is important that media sources continue to share positive stories of social media successes.”Uploaded Feb.16, 2015