Kealakehe High's MalamaMat wins $25,000 KeikiCo prize, only Hawai‘i Island team

Kealakehe High School’s MalamaMat team captured the top high‑school prize in American Savings Bank’s Bank for Education KeikiCo Business Plan Contest, earning $25,000 for the school and marking the only Hawai‘i Island victory among nine statewide winners. American Savings Bank awarded a total of $135,000 across three grade categories to student teams from seven public schools.

KeikiCo is a statewide competition open to public and charter school students in grades 3–12. Teams of up to five students submit a business plan and a pitch video that address a real‑world community issue, with the program designed to introduce foundational financial concepts such as earning income, spending, saving, investing, managing credit and assessing risk while building confidence before graduation. The contest’s aims dovetail with the Department of Education’s movement toward making financial literacy a high‑school graduation requirement.

MalamaMat’s concept focuses on protecting coastal ecosystems by containing small oil spills for vessel operators. The team’s pitch describes a mat that soaks up oil, can be stored on deck and, when saturated, returned to a collection facility for replacement. Kealakehe’s career and technical education coordinator, Justin Brown, said the school used the contest to broaden student engagement: “There was no limit to how many teams we could submit, so we used KeikiCo as an opportunity to engage as many curious and creative students as possible.” Brown added that teachers tied the competition into classwork: “We even incorporated it into our curriculum, giving students practical skills they can apply beyond the classroom.” He said the school plans to allocate the award toward “future research and development for our project, educational field trips and learning resources for keiki.”

First‑place awards of $25,000 also went to Ala Wai Elementary (elementary division, Mo’olelo Minis) and Maui Waena Intermediate (middle division, EcoRacers). Second‑place teams received $15,000 and People’s Choice winners took home $5,000, bringing the total distributed to nine teams to $135,000. Second‑place recipients included Ka‘ala Elementary, Highlands Intermediate and Pearl City High School; People’s Choice winners included Kipapa Elementary, Maui Waena Intermediate and Pearl City High School.

The award ceremony’s video transcript includes celebratory remarks noting “we have over 125 entries statewide” and stating, “Additionally to that um each student on the also get $500.” That wording appears in the ceremony audio transcript and should be read as remarks captured at the event; American Savings Bank’s official winners list does not list per‑student cash awards and organizers can confirm the detail.

For Big Island residents, Kealakehe’s win highlights local students applying entrepreneurship to island problems, in this case coastal protection, while securing funds that the school intends to reinvest in research, field learning and classroom resources. The victory also underscores how contests like KeikiCo serve as practical training grounds as Hawai‘i moves to strengthen financial‑literacy education for tomorrow’s workforce.