Raise the Bell May Day Challenge Success

Over four days, nearly 200 donors came together to contribute more than $75,000

HPA’s 2021 May Day Challenge has come to a close, and it is one for the books!  to help “raise the bell” for Davies Memorial Chapel.

HPA is deeply grateful to all of those who are making this important project possible with their aloha for the space and with gifts large and small. Davies Memorial Chapel is a sanctuary that is both unpretentious and stirring; it is an anchor in the past and a central part of the school’s present and future. Throughout the campaign, the school heard from couples who were married in the chapel, from those who were baptised in the chapel as infants, and from successive generations of Ka Makani who celebrated and gathered there.

In 2016, HPA was forced to remove the chapel’s ʻōhiʻa wood bell tower when it nearly collapsed. The tower and four original bells will be returned to their rightful place atop the chapel as part of a larger plan to fully restore and refurbish the mid-century building.

In 1984, thanks to the generosity of Marjorie Babcock Robertson, the ʻōhiʻa tower and steel beams were replaced due to weathering and safety concerns. There are four bells within the tower: one large bell, and three smaller bells. All were cast at a foundry in Belgium and were given in honor of Robertson “for her untiring devotion to the school she helped to build” by Mr. and Mrs. Strickland. John Strickland taught biology at HPA in the 1960s. The four bells are themselves christened with names: Robbie (for Robertson’s husband and founding HPA Board member), Integrity, John, and Timothy.

Constructed in 1967, Davies Memorial Chapel is one of the most architecturally significant buildings designed by renowned architect Vladimir Ossipoff. HPA is working with alumnus and architect Greg Warner ’77 of Walker Warner Architects in San Francisco, and Aaron Speilman ‘95 of Nanea Studios in Waimea to ensure a careful and respectful approach for the chapel’s restoration.