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With many people still uprooted after the Hawaii wildfires last summer, people are working in innovative ways to help meet community needs, even as government aid is slow in arriving at times. A flotilla has delivered food, for example, and organizations are working to provide new housing to residents in the hardest-hit areas.
Not long after the devastating wildfires, when asked what people in Lahaina, Hawaii, needed the most, Chris Mangca didn’t answer with a list of supplies. Instead, he said, “They need a break, love, some happiness, to see that people care about them.”
Mangca, a boat captain from Molokai, an island 25 miles away, had been making daily boat trips to Lahaina since footage of the wildfires began rolling in on social media on August 8th. Mangca and a dozen others from the neighboring island returned for Labor Day weekend to relieve some of the resident volunteers who were cooking thousands of meals at a few of the community-led distribution hubs and to help throw a local-style luau to bring people some normalcy and joy after what had happened.
The wildfires rapidly turned the historic town in West Maui to ash, destroying thousands of homes, businesses and a beloved Native Hawaiian cultural center.
Government aid has trickled in slowly, so the community from Maui and the surrounding islands have risen up to help one another.
Mangca, who initially went in to rescue people while the island was still in flames, found himself one of several in a fleet of boats, jet skis, and catamarans from all over the islands that came in daily to drop off food and other supplies.
West Maui Council Member Tamara Paltin, who had also been on the ground helping her constituents, spoke to the resilience and relationships of the community at a county council meeting, quoting a friend who said, “The kupaʻāina, the people of this place, are not the passive recipients of aid; they are the navigators.”
A boat ramp became one of the core supply centers, even as limited access opened up for those with a Lahaina ID or pre-approved aid. Volunteers would pick up the supplies from the fleet — sometimes by wading through waist-deep water — then deliver them to several shelters and other community-led distribution hubs all over the island.
All were run by a vast ecosystem of volunteers, many who had lost everything, all of whom were navigating constantly changing needs.
“Since the beginning of the disaster, it’s been the community helping the community,” said Blake Ramelb in an Instagram video. He grew up in Lahaina and has been using social media to give words of encouragement and amplify and help crowdsource the community’s needs.
“I’m just a concerned citizen trying to do my best because I have people that I love who could potentially be put at risk,” Ramelb says. “Let’s keep the people that are still here safe.”
Giving direct assistance
When meal charities approached the organization Hungry Heroes Hawaii to see if HHH could help deliver thousands of their meals that had initially been turned away at checkpoints, co-founder Steven Calkins reached out to restaurants and instead asked whether, if HHH supplied the food, the restaurants would make the meals. Several signed on, alongside food trucks.
Every day now, volunteers pick up and distribute 1,000 pounds of produce from Local Harvest, which works with local growers to supply those kitchens. Calkins says they also ride into communities ice cream truck-style so that people can come get what they need. Volunteers also pick up more than 400 meals a day to deliver to the neighborhoods that need it most.
“HHH has always been a grassroots project, all directed at people helping people through the heart,” Calkins says. The goal, since the organization began during the COVID-19 pandemic, is to create a sharing economy, with partner organizations donating goods instead of money.
Other people and local organizations have also stepped up to help get financial aid directly to affected families. The aid is important because most food in Hawaii is imported and prices are 56% higher than the national average.
Others have been able to make ends meet through direct Venmo donations. Early on, a group of community members worked tirelessly to put together an Instagram page for donations to go directly to families in need, who have been vetted by the group.
There has also been a community-sourced document of vetted GoFundMe fundraisers shared on social media. So far more than $20 million has been raised among the 250 fundraisers.
Keeping people rooted
Lahaina, once the seat of the Hawaiian Kingdom, has long been home to a deeply rich and diverse population of multigenerational families. This diverse culture of people, Mangca says, always comes together when they need to.
Mangca says many Lahaina residents who have lived there for generations have refused to leave because they are afraid that when they do, they’ll lose everything.
In order to keep people in Lahaina, community members and organizations have been working more quickly than the government by bringing in temporary housing. Local nonprofit Family Life Center flew in 60 quick-assembly modular homes manufactured in Hungary to be placed on a 10-acre lot owned by the King’s Cathedral church.
Farmer Eddie Garcia of Regenerative Education Centers is using his farm south of Lahaina as a staging area to build 200 self-sufficient tiny homes that will be given, free of charge, to residents displaced by the fires. Garcia is also working with landowners to find locations for the homes. His goal is to keep the Lahaina community in Lahaina.
“All the things [that] were saved in the museums here to show what the history of what Lahaina was, all of that is gone. So what do we have to tell the history of this place? It is the people who live here who survived it, they need to be able to rebuild and reintegrate,” Garcia said on Instagram when discussing the project.
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