The WSU community and moms are invited to say “Aloha” to WSU’s Hawaii Club at its 31st Annual Mom’s Weekend Luau.

Aloha, the Hawaiian word for hello and goodbye, marks the theme of this year’s family event.

“I want club members to be proud to share culture, where they come from and their identity,” Hawaii Club activities chair and junior Ilisha Badua said.

Mom’s Weekend Luau is one of the club’s largest fundraisers, aiming to spread Hawaiian culture to the masses through food and entertainment.

The event includes a variety of different dances and an assortment of traditional Hawaiian foods including lomi salmon, kalua pig, barbeque chicken, haupia, pineapple, vegetarian options and more.

Reina Lynn Tolentino, a sophomore nursing major and club secretary, said the dances will range from men only, women only and co-ed, all with different meanings to them and unique significant hand movements in each.

“We have different costumes for all the dances,” Badua said. “We’ve been rehearsing every single day for the past two weeks, with this week having four-hour practices to clean up our performances and look great and presentable when luau comes around.”

Every year, a gift is presented to the moms in attendance. This year, moms will be welcomed with one-of-a-kind, custom-designed, heart-shaped pendants made by club members.

“Moms do everything for us and I want them to feel appreciated or given thanks in a way,” sophomore and co-luau Director Taase Taofi said.

Luau is not only an exposure and didactic event for the general public, but a homecoming for Hawaiian students at WSU.

“Being 2,000-plus miles away from home and coming to a bigger state like Washington can be scary,” Taofi said. “I want our members to have fun, but also feel like they have a family here. Hawaii is home to not only Hawaiians, but to Japanese, Filipino, Koreans and all other types of ethnicity. When people come to Hawaii Club, people can be whatever they want. We are all different, but that doesn’t matter, we will accept you.”

The acronym of Aloha represents the pillars of what Hawaii Club and the Hawaiian people stand for, Taofi said.

She said Akahai means kindness, to be expressed with tenderness, Lokahai means unity, to be expressed with harmony, Oluolu means agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness, Haahaa means humility, to be expressed with modesty, and Ahonui means patience, to be expressed with perseverance.

The 31st Annual Mom’s Weekend Luau will take place from 5-7 p.m. on Saturday at WSU Recreation Center courts 6 and 7. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are available for pre-sale this week in the CUB spine from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 for students with ID and $18 for the general public. At-the-door tickets are $18 for students with ID and $20 for the general public.