|
Maui Wildfires Response - Supporting Our ‘Ohana
The Hawai’i Restaurant Association’s Early Actions and Long-Term Plan
Update from Sheryl Matsuoka, HRA's Executive Director
During the early morning hours of Wednesday, August 9th, as all the texts started to come in about the fires on Maui, the Hawaiʻi Restaurant Association (HRA) quickly started mobilizing and organizing. We sent out communications to the community on how to provide support for our Maui ʻohana in multiple ways - for both temporary relief and long-term assistance - for the families and visitors who were displaced.
In the initial stages of this tragic event, we sent out a form at 10:00 a.m. on the 9th to collect contact information from all those who were willing and able to assist and what they could offer for support. Our community on Maui, Oʻahu and various parts of the U.S. started offering on-site help, housing, bedding, food, generators as well as money and transportation. We received responses to this call-to-action immediately, and by 5:00 p.m. that afternoon, we had over 400 people who offered their help.
On the same day at 5:30 pm, we sent out another communication updating the community on an active shelter location and collection site, as well as listing the reputable sources who provided emergency information, shelter locations and donation links.
We initially mobilized and coordinated donations of cooked and uncooked food, water, medical supplies, bedding, clothing, emergency items, personal care items, diapers, generators as well as on-site manpower, both on Maui and here on Oʻahu. And most importantly, where to make monetary donations as unfortunately there were many fraudulent sites already asking for donations within the first day.
Currently, Hawaiʻi Restaurant Association members, especially those located on Maui, are actively in the trenches managing the relief efforts which are changing daily. Our HRA administrative team is working overtime to connect the requests for help with our contacts on-site, closing the gap between those who need immediate aid and our many generous donors who want to lend their support.
The connections we have created just this past week have been remarkable - from a small Hana bakery donating forty dozen eggs to the Maui Food Bank; to a storage facility on Maui working with a Waimanālo non-profit organization that has 10 forty-foot containers of donations waiting to be shipped off-island, five of them already on Maui waiting to be unpacked and distributed.
Thanks to Jesse Aguinaldo, HRA Board Member and CEO of Mahaloha Burger, the Raiders Nation quickly donated $100,000.00 for Maui Relief and Recovery. We also connected a national equipment company assembling household starter kits for families moving into temporary housing with the Family Life Center on Maui, which has recently broken ground on a 10-acre property owned by King’s Cathedral to house hundreds of displaced families.
The magnitude of the Maui fires has been equally matched by the efforts from the Hawai’i Restaurant Association to quickly spearhead efforts through our Kōkua for Maui campaign.
HRA is committed to providing various types of long-term assistance the affected communities will require to first recover and eventually, rise and thrive.
We are now collecting HRA members’ crowdfunding links to be updated on our website that will directly support individual eateries who lost their businesses along with the recovery needs of their affected families.
The HRA is also getting ready to launch our Restaurant Day campaign with participating restaurants and eateries committing to donating proceeds to Maui recovery efforts on a monthly basis.
The HRA continues to update our community on resources, fundraising events and other ways to continue to support Maui’s recovery through our mailing list, social media and local network. Please stay connected with us through these platforms to be updated when we announce other programs in the coming weeks.
We continue to lock arms with all of our members and the community throughout the state to help in any way we can. Our collective is only as strong as its individuals, and we deeply value everyone’s continued aloha and support.
| 
