At the February 12, 1955, groundbreaking for the Church College of Hawaii, which became BYU-Hawaii in 1974, LDS Church president David O. McKay foretold that millions of people would come to Laie "to see what this town was all about." At that time the annual visitor count to all of Hawaii was only about 110,000, and Laie was just a rural community surrounded by sugar cane fields.
Over the past 40-plus years, the Polynesian Cultural Center and BYU-Hawaii have established a unique relationship where the University provides the Center with over 700 student employees a year, and the Center helps the students finance their education as well as makes significant monetary contributions to the University:
Since its founding in 1963, over 33 million people have come to Laie to experience the Polynesian Cultural Center, and nearly 15,000 BYU-Hawaii students have worked — and danced, and demonstrated and served — their way through school by working at the PCC. Mahalo to all who have visited.
