DWS Conserve to Preserve Youth Initiative

The Department of Water Supply is encouraging Big Island children to “Conserve to Preserve.”

The tagline is the theme of the department’s 2020 Keiki Water Conservation Poster Contest, which is open to all Big Island schoolchildren enrolled in kindergarten through the fifth grade.

The free contest aims to highlight the importance of water conservation and why drinking water supplies must be protected and preserved, a DWS release said. It challenges keiki to utilize artistic ways of conserving our most precious resource — safe drinking water.

Conservation ideas, including the video Save Water to Help the Earth, are posted online under the “Conservation” link at www.hawaiidws.org.

Friday, March 13 is the deadline to submit an original piece of artwork illustrating the Conserve to Preserve theme on flat, 11- by 17-inch paper. No computer graphics or photographs will be accepted. Any medium may be used, except for three-dimensional renderings, chalk, charcoal and oil-based crayon.

Each poster submission must be accompanied by a completed entry form available online at www.hawaiidws.org, via email by contacting dws@hawaiidws.org or by calling DWS at 961-8050. Entries may be mailed to or dropped off at DWS offices in Hilo, Kona, Waimea and Kaʻū. Address locations and additional contest rules are listed on the entry form and the DWS website.

Prizes will be awarded to the 1st and 2nd place entrants from each grade level, kindergarten through fifth grade, for a total of 12 winners island-wide. Winning entries will be announced at a future Water Board meeting. Winners from the 2019 contest are showcased in the 2020 calendar available at DWS offices and online.

Founded in 1949, the Department of Water Supply is a semi-autonomous agency of the County of Hawai‘i whose mission is to provide customers with an adequate and continuous supply of safe drinking water through the operation of its 23 separate water systems, the release said.