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A children's choir with a conductor facing them

The Ko'olauloa Children’s Chorus united families and community members to host a garage sale at Laie Elementary to raise money for the choir’s upcoming trip to Germany and Austria. The group transformed Laie Elementary’s field into a makeshift marketplace with tents, lunch plates, baked goods, and several garages-worth of wares. The Choir’s president and founder, Esther Macy, said the KCC has been holding these fundraisers for about 15 years and generally raise between $6000-8000 each time. According to Macy, the choir had already presold 500 $12 plate lunches before the event began. Macy explained, “The secret to our success is the parents; they follow through with their assignments and everything gets done. Some have been working throughout the night and all day today to get this done.” The nine-week trip the garage sale is funding will cost each participating member approximately $4000, and will begin in the summer of 2017. During their tour, the choir will perform five concerts in Germany and Austria, one of which will be performed side by side with the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Macy said the two choirs will have a workshop together. “They will teach us a German song; we will teach them a Hawaiian song, and we will come together for a concert,” said Macy. Another venue where the KCC will perform is the St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, where the children will sing three numbers during a Mass service. When the children aren’t singing, they will be traveling around in deluxe coaches, seeing a long list of historic locations. Among their destinations are the St. Marx cemetery in Vienna where Mozart and several other composers are buried, a former Nazi concentration camp, and several locations pertinent to classical music history. According to Macy, the members of the Chorus have had the opportunity to visit and sing in England, France, China, Italy, and at Carnegie Hall in New York. Nan Schlag is the mother of one of the choir members who has previously traveled with the group. She said travelling is great because off all the sights and experiences. “You get to see so much. They got to do and experience things they never would have seen otherwise,” said Schlag. “Performing for an international audience was very valuable to her, and I knew Esther is very organized so I knew the kids would be well taken care of. I didn’t have any worries sending [my daughter] at all.” Smylyn Naluai sang for the choir when they visited Italy last year and said the experience was “truly amazing, and also very difficult.” According to her, the hardest part was having to “wake up super early every day and sometimes having to sing until nine at night.” She then said the three servings of gelato every day more than made up for early mornings and late nights.