He filled showrooms for fifty years. The schools paid him nothing. He went anyway.
For 44 years, Frank De Lima drove to Hawaii elementary schools. Five days a week. Seven months a year. 150 schools every year. 70,000 kids every year. He did the shows for free. And for more than two decades, he paid for the program himself, out of his own savings.
He was born in 1949 in Pauoa Valley. Catholic Portuguese family with Hawaiian, Chinese, Irish, Scottish, English and Spanish blood. His mother was the family’s slapstick. His father was the deadpan king. Frank was already imitating his babysitter Mrs. Lee speaking Chinese at three years old.
He went to Damien Memorial. Then Chaminade. Then St. Patrick’s Seminary in California. He earned a Masters of Divinity. He was ordained a Catholic deacon at twenty-five.
He came home to be a priest.
He lasted ten months.
“After 10 months, I just thought I’d try that and see if it worked. And it worked.” Comedy worked. 12 Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards. The Lifetime Achievement Award. Fifty years on stage. The Filipino Christmas tree. The Chinese man. The sumo wrestler. The Portagee bit that made his own Portuguese community come at him in the early days, until his mother showed up at his shows with her Portuguese lady friends and defended him.
Then in 1980, after a car accident, while he was sitting at home healing, an idea formed that would consume the next 44 years of his life.
He started visiting schools.
Not for a fee. For NOTHING. He talked to kids about reading. About family. About taking care of their bodies. About when to laugh and when to listen. The visits started small. Within five years they were statewide. In 1995 he made it official, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called the Frank De Lima Student Enrichment Program.
For the next twenty years he funded it himself. The comedian who made Hawaii laugh quietly paid for his own assemblies. His own travel. His own materials. His own time. Three schools a day. Five days a week. Seven months a year. The full state on a two-year rotation. “If a kid went to school in Hawaii from kindergarten to eighth grade, they’ve seen me five times.”
FIVE times. Personally. For FREE.
The Catholic deacon who never became a priest gave his weekdays to 70,000 children a year. And then his body started giving out. Diabetes at fifty. Decades of red-eye flights. The bones complained. The back complained. He kept going.
In December 2024, he drove to Waimanalo Elementary for the last time. He sang the songs. He made the kids laugh. He told them how to take care of their bodies. Then he closed the program down.
On January 5, 2025, he stood on the stage of the Hawaii Theatre with Andy Bumatai, Augie T, and Paul Ogata, the men he had shared the road with for half a century, and said goodbye. A reporter asked what he was proudest of in his fifty years. He didn’t say the Hoku awards. He didn’t say the Lifetime Achievement. He didn’t say the Blue Note residencies or the sold-out theaters.
“The student program. I think that’s, that is what I always will miss the most.”
Weeks later he moved to a senior facility in Las Vegas. No car. Two hours of therapy every morning, neck, back, leg. His family takes him to the store. The man who taught 70,000 Hawaii kids a year how to take care of their bodies now needs help getting his own to the grocery aisle.
The program is still a 501(c)(3). His name is still on it. Somewhere in Pauoa, in Waipahu, in Kaneohe, in Hilo, the kids he visited in 1980 are running the schools now. They are the teachers. The principals. The parents.
He spent fifty years on stage being everyone. He spent 44 of them being someone the kids could count on to show up.
“I’m going to miss it.”
