![\"GRACE](\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/GracePitu-173x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGrace \u201cPitu\u201d Sablan Vaiagae arrived at the coffee shop where we had agreed to meet after her guesting stint at a morning radio show. She sat down, took a sip of her caf\u00e9 latte and said, \u201cIt\u2019s been a busy couple of weeks but I am glad to meet you.\u201d And in a nod to how everything have been at a breakneck pace for her and knowing that she\u2019s on a short break from the campaign trail, she immediately got the ball started with, \u201cJust call me Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaiagae is running for the post of representative for Precinct 3 under the CNMI Republican Party banner in a special election to fill the seat that has been vacant since July due to the untimely passing of her brother-in-law, former representative Ivan Alafanso Blanco.<\/p>\n
Vaiagae spent many years off island\u2014she was 18 when she began to join outreach programs for the church that brought her to Tinian, Rota, and Guam. Yet even after she moved to the U.S. mainland, she continued being active in many initiatives that benefited the CNMI community. \u201cSo it felt I never really left home,\u201d she said. So when she came back to Saipan, she dove right in to her first love\u2014volunteer work and being part of outreach programs.<\/p>\n
According to Vaiagae, there are times when your family knows more about you that you yourself and that included being able to expand her capacity for service by represent the people of Precinct 3.<\/p>\n
She said the Sablan and Vaiagae clans knew that she can have a bigger impact on the community and that even her sister Carmen, the widow of Ivan Blanco, knew that she is the perfect candidate to represent the people of Precinct 3. \u201cWhen I moved back home in 2016, they\u2019ve been asking me to run for public office because volunteer work in the community and being an educator myself, working for and with the community is a big part of my life\u2026but then I had to put that on the back burner\u2026but I didn\u2019t stop working and initiating projects on the side. \u2026When my sister reached out to me and asked if I would run, she made me see what my family sees in me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What did Carmen say that convinced her? \u201cMy sister said \u2018You were very close to my husband. In fact, he\u2019s been molding, coaching you and mentoring you for a reason. \u2026I\u2019m asking you because you\u2019re the only one that knows what he\u2019s passionate about and you\u2019ve been a champion in some of the projects that he\u2019s done for the community.\u2019 I said yes because my sister asked and because we needed to continue the work for the people. \u2026A lot of his projects have already started and some are already drafted and planned\u2026and we were going to carry on,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Vaiagae is half-Chamorro and half-Pohnpheian. Growing up, she said she was surrounded by love, compassion and direction that she carried with her wherever she is and in whatever she does. She said she was taught by her father to be a people for others and by her mother to be a nurturer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father was an educator who had a heart for service and people. He worked for his cousin, the former mayor George Sablan at the Mayor\u2019s Office and he had a heart for people because he did not see disparities as he believed to \u2018treat others like you want to be treated.\u2019 \u2026There was never a time that he boasted of his lineage or about his Sablan family. He was a humble man. He passed away in 2008 and one of my best memories of him was that he was all about Westernization and yet the culture component was still strong and he was keen on keeping tradition and language alive in the family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She describes her mom, on the other hand, as a Proverbs 31 woman\u2014a scripture in the Bible that says women must be God-fearing, loving, and nurturing. \u201cMy mom was a housewife and\u2026my dad made me understand the important role of being a housewife at a time when I was young, passionate and ready to conquer the world. \u2026He said it was akin to a full-time job that no one can take on and replace and this made my mother the strength of the family. She raised me and my siblings very traditionally and made us love languages. We spoke even the Pohnpheian dialects because she had a strong belief that strength comes from knowing our origin, knowing your roots,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Viagae credits her sister for teaching her to have belief in herself but one of the most profound lessons she\u2019s learned was from her brother-in-law, Ivan Blanco, himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIvan had a slogan that goes, \u2018It\u2019s five o\u2019 clock somewhere\u2019 and it means that meaningful work should be finished by 5 or do what you have to do before the clock hits 5. But one of the things I admire about him is that his work as a statesman continued even after 5. \u2026He may leave his hat in the office after work, but [his work] carried on with him and his colleagues and to the people that reached out to him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026My life is really about family. Every family knits the community and the all the islands. \u2026I believe there is a reason for everything, that God equip you for wherever you need to be. \u2026Right now, I am here, doing the work that needs to be done and to continue the initiatives for Precinct 3.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Grace \u201cPitu\u201d Sablan Vaiagae arrived at the coffee shop where we had agreed to meet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":353777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}