A $2 million gift will provide full merit-based scholarships to nursing students at the University of Hawaii Maui College beginning in the fall.

The gift from the Gilbert and Aileen Chuck Foundation will create the Kam Scholars Program, named for Aileen Chuck’s late father, who had a longtime medical practice in Windward Oahu. The program will provide approximately half of the first- and second-year Associate of Science in Nursing students with funding for tuition, books, fees and other costs, a UH news release said, and will last for the next 10 years.

“The reality is that, living here in Hawaii, all of our students have financial barriers,” said Mary Farmer, chair of UH Maui College’s Allied Health Department, which encompasses the ASN program. “We have everyone in the program from single mothers who are starting a new life for them and their children, to people who are adventuring into a new career, and all of these folks are dealing with financial barriers. This scholarship is going to really impact the ones that receive it tremendously.”

The full-ride scholarships will be distributed to the top-ranked students entering the 2024-25 cohort of the ASN program and the top-ranked second-year students. Farmer said 13 first-year students and 19 second-year students will receive the scholarship.

UH Maui College currently has about 70 students enrolled in its ASN program.

Farmer said that while UH Maui College receives “a lot of support in a lot of different ways,” this particular gift is unique because of its longevity. Farmer said that since she began working at the college in 2005, she’s never seen such a large commitment from a donor over such a long period of time.

“We hope that the scholarships make the students’ enrollment a little easier and provide a feeling of accomplishment for their hard work in pursuing their careers,” Ron Purdy, a trustee of the Gilbert and Aileen Chuck Foundation, said in the UH news release. “We are pleased to make a difference in the future for these aspiring students and that Maui’s health will be better for their hard work at the college pursuing their career.”

The donation also comes as the state suffers from a shortage of nurses. According to the Healthcare Asso­ciation of Hawaii’s most recent Healthcare Workforce Initiative Report, there were 999 open registered nurse positions, equating to approximately 14% of the total RN workforce, and 211 open licensed practical nurse positions, or 30% of the LPN workforce.

At the time of the survey, Maui had 599 vacant health care positions — approximately 36% of the island’s health care workforce. Nursing assistant and certified nurse aide openings made up 35% of the vacancies islandwide.

Laura Reichhardt, director of the Hawaii State Center for Nursing, said that while the number of nurses who hold a Hawaii license is increasing nationally, there are fewer and fewer people who hold Hawaii licenses actually living in the state.

“When we actually look at the nurses who are in our state, LPNs are declining and RNs are flatlining, even though through work from the Healthcare Association of Hawaii and conversations that the Hawaii State Center for Nursing has with our nurse leaders across the state, the demand for nursing is still strong,” Reichhardt said.

Farmer said Hawaii hires a lot of traveler nurses from the mainland to treat local nursing demands — a trend that isn’t the result of a lack of interest in nursing, but rather not enough nursing faculty and clinical sites to train new nurses.

“We want to keep our local people here and getting these living-wage jobs, rather than hire travelers from out of state who are very costly,” Farmer said. “Our goal, ultimately, is to give these jobs to our local people. Our goal really should be more focused on getting moneys into the hands of our local people to get this education to serve the community.”

Reichhardt said that with big investments into nursing, like the creation of the Kam Scholars Program, the hope is that it will result in the training of nurses across all care settings — including long-term care nurses, public health nurses, care managers and nursing faculty.

“There’s a lot of needs |for nursing right now. We’re starting to see fewer vacancies in acute care positions, which is promising, but we can’t only focus on acute care nursing,” she said. “When we have these big investments into nursing, the hope is that we get nurses in all the places that we need them, to contribute to that strong patient care and that strong relationship of nurses across all care settings.”

Farmer said she hopes the grant will inspire more students to pursue nursing, especially as UH Maui College has seen a “little bit of a drop in its number of applicants.”

“I think that moneys like this just really help the students know that the community is behind them, the donors are behind them and everyone’s really rooting for their success,” Farmer said. “I think it’s a morale builder.”

Reichhardt said that while Hawaii is underproducing nurses locally, individual schools are working on various initiatives and programs to enroll more students. The value of retaining nurses in Hawaii is twofold, she said.

“We want people in Hawaii to thrive, and nursing, though it is a very hard career, is a career that provides people with economic opportunity and stability, and hopefully, that will help people stay in our state,” Reichhardt said. “And from a care perspective, Hawaii has a unique culture, and having people who grew up and have an understanding of their own culture, as well as others’ cultures, they might have that exposure and that ability to be able to provide rich and robust care.”