Cooper Center

For more than four decades, the Cooper Community Center has been the place where Volcano people gather for just about every kind of event: craft sales, weddings and funerals, association meetings, farmer’s markets, skateboarding, tai chi and yoga classes, free food distribution, Fourth of July celebrations. There are public toilets, available wi-fi and a keiki playground. The thrift store has thousands of books and gently used clothing, tools, kitchen ware and utensils,

And it was all built and run by community volunteers.   

The idea of establishing a community park and center in Volcano had been around since the late 1940s, and a number of community groups, including the Volcano Farmer’s Association, Keakealani School PTA, Volcano Kumiai and Volcano Lions Club had taken up the issue at various times. But it wasn’t until 1980 when the Hui ʻO Volcano, the forerunner to the current Volcano Community Association, was formed and the plans started to come together.

“At the time the community was just starting to switch to a younger generation. A lot of people were coming in with young kids, and they said we don’t have any kind of park or community gathering place for them,” said former County Councilman Russell Kokubun. “People realized there was a diversity of needs, recreational needs, kupuna needs. So, we just got together and said how are we going to address that?”  

Most nearby towns already had community centers funded and run by Hawaiʻi County, but by then money was tight. If Volcano was going to get its own center, it was clear that it would have to be a largely do-it-yourself project.  

Which was just fine with many Volcano residents.

“The Volcano Community Center is not just another building. Everyone from the greatest to the least who had a hand in bringing the project to completion shares the triumphant satisfaction of accomplishing something worthwhile,” resident Mary Wilkerson wrote in the Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald after its completion in 1987. “I was proud of the kind of neighbors who had the vision to recognize a need for improvement in their community, the ambition to want it, and the gumption to roll up their sleeves and work at making the vision a reality.”

Original costs were estimated at more than half a million dollars. In the end it was built with a land donation of 10 acres from the state, a $65,000 allocation from the county to cover material costs, and the sweat equity of dozens of people who literally raised the roof and erected the building walls. In all, it took more than six years from start to finish.

The newly formed Volcano Community Association got the ball rolling with public meetings and secured the land for development when an executive order transferred 10 acres of state land to the county.

“There are still many problems, but little by little they will be overcome if all those committed to work for the betterment of our community just keep plugging along and do not lose sight of the ultimate goal,” newspaper columnist Virginia Dicks wrote at the time.

She was right: It took time, but it got done.

Building plans had to be drawn and approved, zoning changes needed to be made, operational plans and standards had to be negotiated with the county.

In 1981, the County Council allocated $65,000 to purchase building materials, and began a long period of negotiations that would eventually have the community, not the county, running the center. The original plans called only for clearing and grading part of the land to make room for a parking lot, a water tank and a small meeting room.

Volunteers raised additional funds by hosting bake and produce sales as well chili and rice dinners. Others worked with the city to negotiate a contract outlining how the community would run the center, and still others contributed design and construction skills. At first only four or five volunteers worked on the actual building of the center.

“Remember, we told the county we would build the project ourselves if they would just supply the materials,” newspaper columnist Mary Finley reminded residents. Later, more than two dozen people would show up on weekends to help however they could.

While dozens of people contributed to the effort, longtime residents single out a few names for their commitment to the project: John Cooper, for whom the center was eventually named, acted as de facto construction manager, aided by Ray Fuhrman, a former steel worker who contributed the design and whose name now adorns the nearby volunteer fire house, and Don Carlson, whose name was placed on the covered courtyard built several years later.

While construction was nearing completion, community organizer Bonnie Goodell, who had helped negotiate the unique operating agreement with the county, set about establishing the Cooper Center Council, where representatives of different community groups come together to manage the center.

“We were going to run this ourselves, with each organization here having a say in how it operates,” she said. “There would be a community council made of up each group in the village sending one person with one vote.” Each organization — from Alcoholics Anonymous to the Lions Club — was given a chance to use the facility and have a say in how it would be run. But without any money coming in from the county, the center had to be self-sustaining.

That’s where Betsy Mitchell got involved. “I made the rules and she made people stick to them,” Goodell recalls. Mitchell had run the volunteer blood bank in Honolulu for years and took on the task of Cooper Center’s day-to-day operations. She baked and sold cookies to raise funds, and she got the ball rolling on the thrift store and what eventually became the still-popular Sunday morning farmer’s market, which she once described as “almost like going to church – small groups everywhere helping one another.” Proceeds from the farmer’s market and thrift store still help fund the center’s operations.

The first phase of the Cooper Center was finally completed and dedicated in 1987.  

Over the following 35 years, the center has continued to grow, adding a large covered lanai, a commercial-sized kitchen, additional meeting space, a building and home for Volcano’s volunteer fire department, and a large covered recreation area that could be used for basketball, volleyball, skateboarding and other recreational activities. The center remains as vibrant as ever and is still a source of community pride.