CONGRATS OSGL SCHOLARS!!

Kiara Sakamoto
7 days ago
3 min read

First, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates lately. The funny thing about life is that no matter how organized, prepared, or ahead-of-the-game you are, there is always something around the corner ready to hijack your plans. Thank you all for your patience.

And with that out of the way, we recently celebrated our 2026 Scholarship Recipients at Kapiolani Seafood at their new location on Amana Street!

Bottom floor of the Pacific Grand on Amana St.

This is their brand new location with convenient, free parking, 3 party rooms, and more shiny, reflective decor than the surface of a disco ball. They have a full menu and will also serve their amazing dim sum until closing! Restaurants that make and serve late night dim sum are few and far between. If you have a chance to go, it's a must!

The OSGL Scholarship Program strives to encourage, motivate, and assist OSGL students in their pursuit for higher education by providing some financial support in their journey. In the last 27 years, OSGL has awarded more than $100,000 to 46 students. To qualify, students must be pursuing a degree from an accredited 2-4 year institution and is required to have a minimum of a 2.7 GPA and answer some essay questions as part of the application. The essay questions this year asked how they will serve their community after graduation and what they would like to see OSGL do to celebrate our 130th anniversary.

We awarded three bright, promising scholars this year with a $1500 scholarship, with a bonus $1000 generously donated by the late Clayton Chang Trust and divided between the three recipients.

BRYNN CHANG-KANOA

Brynn has already won multiple OSGL scholarships in his career so far as a sophomore at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He is pursuing a major in Exercise Science and a minor in Biology with plans to attend dental school and has already been accepted into the Creighton Pre-Professional Dental Scholars Program. He wrote about his dreams to serve the community as a pediatric dentist for the underserved patients in rural areas of Hawaii and was inspired by his Popo's beloved family recipes to envision our 130th anniversary as a celebration of food and family traditions with us coming together to share, learn, and preserve each other's secret family recipes, passing these gems down to the younger generations.

LEAH MEGAN WAI-LAN McEVOY

Leah joins Brynn at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska and maintains a 4.0 GPA in her third year there. She is double majoring in Biology and Environmental Science and minoring in Theater and Spanish. Leah plans to use all of that education to return to Hawaii and work in Hawaiian plant conservation, doing research in the field and educating the community about Hawaii's fragile and imperiled ecology. She answers our essay, proposing a narrative video of interviews with our kupuna members, sharing their stories of the past, followed by our youngest members' vision for OSGL's future; to be premiered at a grand banquet, of course! What better way to celebrate than eating some good food?

KAYLA UJIMORI

Kayla is studying closer to home the University of Hawaii at Manoa, maintaining a 4.0 GPA. She has already won three scholarships from OSGL and is currently working as an intern at the Board of Water Supply. She is majoring in Electrical Engineering and spends her time at UHM networking and forming lifelong connections within her community. Kayla hopes to strengthen Hawaii's most basic and essential utilities, making reliable energy, water, and communication systems for our populace. She envisions our 130th celebration as a grand banquet too, where guests would marvel at a Living Family Tree displaying the names of all of our members and tracing their connection to the village. While we eat, a video would play, documenting Oo Syak's journey from China to Hawaii and celebrating our past and present members. A group photo in front of the tree would commemorate our celebration, adding it to our long and storied history book.