Since 2009, students have held a 5K walk/run that funds homeless services and keeps the event alive by handing it to the next class. Their method of giving back is a model for how Hawaiʻi could respond to homelessness, all year round.

Seven years ago, two Punahou sophomores on the cross country team started the Homeward Bound 5K to raise money for the Institute for Human Services, the homeless services nonprofit that I lead.

Tama Fukuyama had volunteered at our shelter and wanted to do more. She recruited her teammate Maya Grossmann. They had never planned an event, so they looked up how to do it online and followed the steps. The first race drew 365 runners and raised $15,000.

They ran it two more times, then graduated. But the race did not end. Before they left, Tama and Maya chose two younger runners and trained them. That pair chose the next pair. Every class since has done the same. No single person has ever owned Homeward Bound. That is why it still exists today.

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I have watched these students for 17 years, and the lesson I take from them is the handoff. They built something that did not depend on them. They planned for the day they would not be there.

Hawaiʻi’s response to homelessness needs that same spirit and design, because the needs of those we serve never take a day off. Last fiscal year, IHS served 291,594 meals, about 800 a day.

We served 5,749 people through our shelters, clinics, outreach teams and housing programs. And more of them than ever before are coming to us as medically fragile or in psychiatric crisis.

We do not choose who walks through our doors or who we meet on outreach. So we stay ready for whoever it is, and we train the next generation of outreach workers, nurses and case managers to keep that promise and encourage them to pay it forward.

Hawaiʻi is generous. In that same fiscal year, 2,500 people gave to IHS and 1,500 volunteered, giving us 10,461 hours of their time. I am grateful for every one of them. Of those 2,500 donors, 155 give every month. The rest give once, often during the holiday season.

Now both kinds of gifts matter, but they do different work. A one-time gift plants a tree. A recurring one, whether it is money, a monthly shift or a quarterly food drive, plants a forest, even one whose shade a donor may never sit in.

The founders of Homeward Bound knew the difference. They did not plan one race. They planned one that would come back every year, long after they had left. Here are three ways we can follow their example.

Give on a schedule. A gift of any size that arrives every month, to IHS or to any organization you trust in this line of work, lets a nonprofit plan ahead instead of reacting to each season. A gift in your estate planning keeps that support going after you can no longer write the check.

Take a shift and learn the work. Come serve a meal, and you will see what a shelter day looks like. If you have a skill, come teach a class, refurbish our facilities or host a fundraiser. Tama and Maya learned by doing. You can too.

Bring a plus-one. IHS began in 1978 as a volunteer venture in Chinatown, built on community investment before government grants were part of our funding. That foundation holds because people come back, and when they come back they bring someone.

On Thanksgiving morning, Nov. 26, hundreds of people will gather at Mānoa Valley District Park to run or walk 3.1 miles. Come join us. Then do what the students do. Come back next year, and bring the next runner.

Registration for the Homeward Bound 5K is open. You can sign up here.