A community center in Kapolei that works to help others is now the one in need of help.

The Prince Kuhio Community Center in Kapolei was vandalized last month. The walls and floor are covered with profanity written in orange spray paint.

The community center is a multipurpose building run by the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, and a lot of different groups use the facility.

Cassandra Ohelo is one of them. She says the vandalism happened a few weeks ago, and it was hard to see the classroom covered in graffiti.

“I lived in the community for a while and I’ve never witnessed this before so maybe that’s why it was shocking for me,” Ohelo said. “It was very disheartening, just because I have intended to volunteer as a tutor for the youth here, and I saw what it looked like before. It had so much potential to help the community thrive.”

The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands owns the land but does not own the building, so it doesn’t provide any type of security for the property.

“I can’t say that there is a need for security,” Ohelo said. “Like I said, I don’t really feel threatened.”

Instead, Ohelo and a group of others are volunteering to clean up the mess.

“The challenge is that the spray paint was covering a bunch of multi-surfaces and so the trick is finding the right solution and using the right technique to remove it,” said Ohelo.

Ohelo sees great potential in the facility and what it has to offer to the community.

“We love to open the space up to the community, and we love to see it taken care of and utilized,” she said.

We’ve reached out to Honolulu police to get more information about the investigation. It’s not known how many suspects were involved.

The group of volunteers will be cleaning up the facility this Saturday, May 13, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

Ohelo said anything helps from supplies to even food donations for the volunteers.If you’d like to help, you can RSVP online here.