When Jicky Ferrer of Mililani first got an unexpected phone call from the boss, he hoped he was getting a promotion.
Instead, he learned the tragic news that a co-worker and his wife, who were traveling in an RV, had been killed instantly in a crash during a fishing trip in Alaska.
Ferrer, a multimedia specialist for the U.S. Department of Defense, remembers he and others at work were in shock at the loss. The death of the couple, who both worked with them, left two young children — a girl, age 6, and a boy, age 2 — without parents.
While sitting in the lunchroom one day, he and co-workers were thinking about what they could do to help. Ferrer noticed recyclable HI-5 cans and bottles going into the trash. He recycled at home but not at work, and realized he could use recycling to help create a scholarship fund for the kids, whose names he declined to say to protect their privacy.
Over nine years, funds from those recyclables were invested into bonds and resulted in more than $30,000.
“It’s such a beautiful story,” said Annabel Chotzen, a Toastmasters coach who nominated Ferrer for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Heroes Next Door series. “He told the story in a very humble way. … He also has a sense of humor. Every time I hear the story, I cry again.”
Chotzen encouraged Ferrer to feature the recycling effort as the subject of his speech for a contest after learning of his dedication to it, which was also the reason he could not meet to practice on weekends. Ferrer worked on it, and delivered a speech called “Live Aloha, Gift Aloha.” Chotzen said there was laughter as well as tears in the audience.
“I just thought, this is amazing to me that one person would quietly, without any attention, do this, all by himself on the weekend for years,” she said. “It’s behind the scenes.”
She called him a true “ambassador of aloha.”
Ferrer, 56, started out by setting up two bins in the lunchroom at work nine years ago. At first it was slow, he said, until he added a sign specifying that the recyclables were for the two kids. Then contributions to the recycling bins picked up.
“People wanted to help,” he said.
Today he has more than 125 bins set up at military facilities throughout Oahu. On weekends he spends six to eight hours collecting, sorting and then redeeming the recyclable cans and bottles at a recycling center.
He’s been mistaken at times for a janitor. His wife, Marla, put up with bags of cans and bottles stored along the side of the house for as long as she could. Now he picks them up and goes directly to the redemption center. He’s got a strategy down, knowing which are best to count and which to weigh.
While a portion still goes to the two kids’ scholarship fund, the rest, beginning this year, now goes to the Department of Defense to fulfill educational needs for both its military and civilian employees.
Ferrer, a Maryknoll School graduate with a grown son, said his heart went out to the two children, who are now doing well under the care of relatives. They call him “Uncle Jicky.”
In his speech, Ferrer said be believes that “the only solution to a problem is to create a solution.” His philosophy: “The more you give, the more you get back.” He hopes to keep up the recycling for as long as he can.
“When you gift aloha to someone else, it just comes from the heart, and there are no expectations behind that,” Ferrer told the Star-Advertiser “It’s just giving a gift to someone else.”
HONORING THOSE WHO GIVE
About this series
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser recently asked readers to help shine a light on the good works of a few true unsung heroes. Readers responded with nominees from divergent walks of island life who share a common desire to help others. Star-Advertiser editors chose five Heroes Next Door who will be highlighted in stories through today.
