While most in Hawaii took a break to commemorate the past on the 50th anniversary of statehood Friday, more than 500 supporters from Maui County government, business, education, and community took a look into the future Friday night.

They saw a reason to celebrate.

It was the Maui Economic Development Board’s annual fundraising event for the MEDB Ke Alahele Education Fund, the program to support innovation in science and technology education in Maui County’s schools. The dinner was held at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa.

That’s where Hawaii’s Sen. Daniel Inouye assured supporters of the Fund, “The best is yet to come.” He offered a hint of a major announcement, “a big deal,” still forthcoming after taking notice of the massive upgrade at the Maui High Performance Computing Center, the dedication Friday of “Mana,” a computing platform capable of 103 terraflops – 103 trillion operations a second – at the Maui Research & Technology Park.

The fundraising dinner, “A Pathway to Our Future,” highlighted many of the youth who are the future of Maui Nui. Students from Maui High School, Baldwin High, King Kekaulike High, Kalama Intermediate and Wailuku Elementary explained projects and achievements supported by grants from the MEDB Ke Alahele Fund in 2008-09.

In turn, the students, their teachers, Mayor Charmaine Tavares, MEDB President Jeanne Unemori Skog and Inouye shared in the amazement when a total of $201,838 was announced as the amount raised to support the Fund for the coming year.

“Someone said we were in an economic recession,” Inouye said. “We made more money this year than we made last year. This is fantastic.”

“The generosity of the community of Maui — businesses, workers, elected leaders and citizens – will go a long ways to widening the pathway to a future for Maui County, including new opportunities in clean energy and innovative technology while maintaining a healthy environment,” said Skog.

“It’s an incredible show of support for education in Maui Nui. The Ke Alahele Fund will be able to offer more to our schools, which we know are already struggling with funding cuts. This funding means MEDB and our Ke Alahele Fund can do more for teachers and students to promote STEM educational projects.

“We thank all of the businesses that provided donations and support to the MEDB Ke Alahele Education Fund, and helped to make this 2009 event more successful than we could have imagined.”

The Ke Alahele Fund was established in 2006 by MEDB as a way to bolster educational programs in science, technology, engineering and math with grants to support specific programs and to enhance ability of teachers to innovate in their classrooms.

In the 2008-09 school year, awards were as basic as a desktop computer provided to Molokai Middle School to support teachers with computer needs for professional development to $5,000 for a project at King Kekaulike to develop an integrated energy-aquaculture project involving a photovoltaic system and a fishpond.

Mayor Tavares, a teacher before she was an elected official, vowed her continued support of the project to provide for teachers in the years to come. When she went off to college as a chemistry major, she said she recognized her high school education was a success because of her teachers.

“The opportunities came because of the teachers, not because of the programs,” she said. “Teachers are very important because teachers can change your life, as they changed my life.”

Sen. Inouye offered his own promise of support for education in describing Hawaii as “the Silicon Valley of the Pacific.” He noted his role in establishing the Maui High Performance Computing Center as what is now the largest supercomputer in the United States, to support the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Maui Space Surveillance System but also to provide high-speed computing capabilities to business and industry in Hawaii.

On his current trip home from Washington, he said he also reviewed plans for a 30-meter telescope on Mauna Kea that will allow astronomers and cosmologists to gather light from events 14 billion light years away, literally back to the beginnings of the universe.

Across the state on Kauai, Inouye said technology is making the Pacific Missile Range Facility the nation’s premiere military training area combining air, land, ocean surface and undersea tracking capabilities.

There have been major changes in Hawaii over the 50 years since it was accepted as the 50th state, he said. In 1959, anyone needing major medical services or wanting to go to a university had to go to Honolulu, he said.

“If you wanted your son or daughter to go beyond high school, you had to send them to Honolulu. Honolulu was the center and the rest of the state used to be called the outer islands.

“Now you have the university at Manoa and there’s one on the Big Island. The one on Maui will become a university shortly. Yes, the best is yet to come.”

The MEDB Ke Alahele Education Fund was founded in 2006 to expand the pipeline for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Grants awarded from the Fund support needs and opportunities that enhance STEM education systems and activities that align with Focus Maui Nui’s vision, values and strategies. Applications also must meet or exceed the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards set by the Hawaii Department of Education, and broaden access to tools that enrich educational opportunities in STEM.

MEDB’s Ke Alahele Education Fund also supports internships, apprenticeships, professional development, and projects that integrate science and culture.

Information on Ke Alahele and grant applications can be found at www.medb.org. While Ke Alahele maintains an open application procedure, the Fund is accepting specific applications for schools and organizations participating in the VEX and FIRST Robotics programs. Requests for Ke Alahele Robotics grants are due at the MEDB office by Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 at 4:30 pm.