Waipahu residents are being treated to a free health and wellness fair today, thanks to the hard work of three civic-minded high school teens, their teacher and a famous coffee company.

The Aloha Health and Community Empowerment Fair will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at Pupu'ole Community Park, just makai of Waipahu Intermediate School.

Between 20 and 30 booths will provide information on a range of topics from arthritis to legal aid. Everything at the fair will be free, including live entertainment and vegetarian chili made by Waipahu High School culinary art students.

The fair is the brainchild of Waipahu High School juniors Aaron Oasay and May Rose Lazarte, and senior Jessica Nakayama. All are students in Andrew Michael's health careers classes.

To put on the event, the students won a $500 grant from the Starbucks Foundation. The three learned how to write a grant proposal for a nonprofit project at a workshop by Youth Service Hawaii, a nonprofit that offers students programs that focus on community service.

"Thinking in the spirit of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, they wanted to do something for an area of the community that has limited access to healthcare," Michael said.

The "Pupu streets" neighborhood has long had a reputation as the most economically depressed and rough-and-tumble section of Waipahu.

Lazarte said holding the fair at Pupu'ole Community Park will help tear down some of the stereotypes that have arisen about the area.

"It will open up people's minds and show them that it's not a bad place to be in," she said.

Students from Michael's two sections of health careers and four sections of biology classes were enlisted to help, as were others on campus — from Marauder football players and dance club members to those in Club Med and the Red Cross Club.

Michael estimated between 50 and 100 Waipahu students volunteered.

With the advice of Liz Delfico of the Waipahu Community Association, the student also canvassed the community, soliciting donations from businesses and going door-to-door to promote the fair.

Said Delfico after working with the three students: "They are a true philanthropist to have done this from the heart and volunteer their time to help make our community a healthier place."

Oasay and Lazarte, both 16, attributed their community-minded natures to their moms.

Lazarte said that when she was younger, her family traveled to the Philippines, her mom's homeland, to help the disadvantaged there.

Oasay said his mom, a single mother who works in the health field, taught him from a young age to give back to the community.

Oasay wants to be a surgeon. Lazarte's goal is to be a pediatrician.