 "Photo: Ted Copeland/ The Olympian")
 "Photo: Ted Copeland/ The Olympian")
UPDATE: In the original print of this article, Diane Jaber's name was incorrectly spelled as Kaber.
Planet Earth has a friend in Diane Jaber, an environmentally active student of Olympic College.
Jaber, the secretary of OC’s Environmental Outreach club, has been a student at OC since 2008 and has lived in the area since 2001, but Washington is certainly not where she calls home. Kaber was born in Chicago, where she lived until she was 23-years-old.
At 23, she decided to move to the big island of Hawaii to raise her two daughters, and stayed there 23 years.
It was a combination of the beauty of Hawaii and her own children’s future that opened her eyes to the importance of the environment, said Jaber.
“When I lived in Chicago, I wasn’t environmentally aware at all,” she said, “and then I moved to Hawaii, and the beauty of it just opened my eyes and I thought, ‘Wow, one day this could all go away.’ I just can’t allow that to happen.”
Jaber explained that once she had children, she realized that their future depends on the preservation of the environment.
“All children are my inspiration,” she said.
In Hawaii Jaber became involved at a local theater, where she was the volunteer coordinator and directed several plays with children, many of which were focused on environmental concerns.
“One play I directed that was a really rewarding experience was called ‘Ocean World,’” said Jaber.
The play chronicles the story of a mother whale and her baby as they travel through the ocean. Jaber said there were about 80 children involved in the play.
“Seeing all of those children involved really made me feel like I was making a difference,” she said. “It was very encouraging to see them all caring about the environment.”
Jaber went on to direct two other plays about the environment that were provided by the World Wildlife Fund, of which Kaber is also a member.
While in Hawaii Jaber and her friend also opened their own K-12 school, despite the fact that Kaber did not have a degree.
“I just never felt like I really needed one,” she said. “I just used the knowledge that I had and I felt like we got along just fine that way.”
It was when Jaber came to Washington that it became apparent that she needed a degree.
“So many doors were closed to me because all people seemed to ask me was, ‘Well, where’s your degree? Where’s your degree?’ I feel like getting a degree from OC will open some of those doors,” said Jaber.
Jaber said her main goal at OC is to get an associate degree in theater and afterward hopes to transfer to the University of Hawaii.
“I want to use that degree to open my own theater back in Hawaii — that’s my home,” she said. “I want to teach children and adults about the environment through theater.”
As for why Jaber decided to make the move from Hawaii to Washington, she said her two daughters were again her inspiration.
“I moved to Washington because of the quality of education in Hawaii,” she said. “I wanted my daughters to be able to get a college education on the mainland.”
As the secretary of OC’s Environmental Outreach club, Jaber has organized the college’s first “Trashion Show” which will take place on Wednesday.
The Trashion Show is the first local fashion show where students design and model clothes and accessories made out of trash and recyclable materials.
“All of the outfits will be made of recyclable materials or things one might find in the trash, hence the name,” she said.
“The goal of this show and everything the club and I do is to raise awareness about the environment,” said Jaber. “If everyone could just be aware of how their actions affected the environment, I think the world would and will be a better place.”
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