HONOLULU – Dana and David Matlin have pledged $35,000 to create the Lillian S. Hatate Scholarship Endowment. David Matlin is currently the UH Mānoa Athletics Director. This scholarship will support full-time student-athletes participating in intercollegiate sports on any sports team at UH Mānoa who are pursuing a degree in Education.
The scholarship is named in memory of Dana Matlin’s mother Lillian Shigeko Hatate who died in 2012 at the age of 81. Hatate was born in Honolulu to Japanese immigrants. Throughout her life, she knew that education was key to building a successful life both for herself and her three younger siblings. Although her father left high school to work on a dairy farm, he believed strongly in the value of a good education and reminded her that it was the one thing in life that no one can ever take away from you.
Hatate graduated from Roosevelt High School and obtained her bachelor’s degree in education from UH Mānoa. She then earned her master’s in Education from the University of Iowa where she met her husband, Raymond Hatate, also a Hawai‘i student who was working on his physical therapy degree in Iowa.
She went on to teach at the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade level at several Oahu elementary schools before settling on her permanent teaching home at Aina Haina Elementary where she eventually retired after 25 years of service educating Hawai‘i’s youth. Even when she was not in the classroom, Lillian remained committed to teaching and molding her two children, Mark and Dana, and her five grandchildren.
“We are so pleased to be able to carry forward my mother’s legacy and commitment towards higher education and that we can help support another proud University of Hawai‘i student who shares that same dream,”
-Dana Matlin.
"Lillian was an incredibly special person and teaching was how she changed Hawai‘i and her family for the better. On a personal note, Lillian encouraged me to return to school to get my MBA upon moving to Hawai‘i in 1993 and my Shidler education has been a difference maker for me."
-David Matlin
To find out how you can support the UH Mānoa Athletics program contact Associate Athletics Director Philanthropic Partnerships Kimo Kai at (808) 956-4322 or [email protected]. You can also make a gift online at www.uhfoundation.org/givetoathletics
# # #
The University of Hawaiʻi Foundation, a nonprofit organization, raises private funds to support the University of Hawaiʻi System. The mission of the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation is to unite donors' passions with the University of Hawaiʻi’s aspirations by raising philanthropic support and managing private investments to benefit UH, the people of Hawaiʻi and our future generations www.uhfoundation.org.
