The folks at Mission Houses Museum hear it over and over again from local people: "Wow, I haven't been here since ... well, it must have been the fourth grade."

"Thousands of people drive by us every day, but they don't usually come in until their own child reaches the fourth grade too," said acting executive director Marilyn Reppun.

So after decades of running one of the best small museums in the state and sponsoring hundreds of exhibitions and activities there, the museum decided it was time to reach out to the community.

Enter "Places in Our Hearts," a Mission Houses concert that for the first time won't be on the museum grounds, although it will be right across the street in the recently renovated and similarly named Mission Memorial Auditorium. Hey, every outreach movement has to start someplace.

In what museum officials hope will be the first of an annual series of free concerts and lectures dealing with historic Hawai'i, kumu hula Kimo Alama Keaulana will lead a six-person band in a night of stories and song centered around downtown Hono-lulu in the 1920s and '30s.

"What's special about this material is that some of it has never been recorded at all," Keaulana said. "Some of the pieces I just learned from elders who passed them down."

Hawaiians have a long history of writing songs about particular places, and Keaulana hopes that a concert focusing on the downtown and surrounding areas will prove particularly evocative for old-timers.

With names like "Stevedore Hula," "Matsonia," "Aloha Tower" and "Leis for Sale," the event is guaranteed to conjure up images of a familiar place in a different time, Keaulana said.

One of Keaulana's favorites is "Young Hotel," which tells the story of the rooftop garden in the old Alexander Young Hotel downtown where up to 2,000 people once gathered to listen to music under the stars. "Like many of the songs, it's very descriptive of people and places that many people will remember," Keaulana said.

While the songs will look back to an earlier era, Mission Houses officials hope the audience will be looking ahead a little bit.

"The whole area around us is changing, and we need to change, too," Reppun said. "We're hoping to bring a more diverse, wider audience to the museum."

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.