Amanda Pump, Presiden & CEO of Child & Family Service

Child & Family Service is one of Hawai‘i’s oldest, largest and most impactful nonprofits. During the 2025 fiscal year, it says it directly served 16,402 individuals and reached an additional 117,000 through phone calls, referrals and walk-in visits. The beneficiaries were spread across O‘ahu, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i Island, Maui, Lāna‘i and Moloka‘i.

“I truly believe that Child & Family Service does not belong to any one person but to the community. This organization will continue to be here for Hawai‘i’s families until the day the community no longer needs us,” says Amanda Pump, president and CEO since January 2024.

CFS’ free services focus on five areas:

• Caring for keiki: Early education and child abuse prevention through family support.

• Healing from trauma: Counseling and therapeutic services for individuals and families in crisis.

• Empowering youth: Helping teens overcome challenges and achieve success in school and life.

• Honoring kūpuna: Support and wellness services for elders and their caregivers.

• Social enterprises: Strengthening families through goal-setting, resources and resiliency programs.

“We rarely see a family that just needs one thing,” says Pump, who has been in human services for 25 years. “Usually a variety of different things, like, ‘I need better income, I need childcare, I need housing. I might be coping with some substance abuse issues, mental health.’ So one program alone can’t tackle everything.”

Some families get help for a year, while others are supported for five or six years.

CFS was founded in 1899 and today offers 49 programs, with more than half open to walk-ins and the rest available through referrals from family or criminal court, family welfare and others.

Transition to Success is an anti-poverty approach that CFS calls “revolutionary,” because it is making a meaningful impact on families in rural communities across the state, including those with high populations of Native Hawaiian families. This model of care is woven into existing programs and addresses 21 key areas of well-being, connecting families with essential services and resources to maintain stability and improve overall health. There is personalized support, coaching, mentorship and practical resources, and people can share their stories.

“We’ve seen great success in strengthening the social determinants of health,” says Pump, referring to the non-medical factors that often impact health and lifespan, like income, education and available resources.

Every family’s journey is unique, but once they start at CFS, they are guided toward the services they need and supported with food, clothing, information and programs, she says.

Pump says every child deserves two safe parents. Families often turn to CFS for resources, education and preventive services that help to lead them become safe care givers. That means CFS works with many types of parents – including domestic abuse offenders with substantiated child abuse or neglect cases – to create opportunities for healing and change.

“For the most part, kids are resilient and they love their parents,” says Pump. “They deserve access to parents when they are safe.”

To track impact, CFS uses short-term measurements to assess how each service is helping people. For example: With a family seeking safety, success is measured by whether they develop a safety plan, secure housing and basic needs, and sustain permanent housing without relying on multiple systems. Another key measure is whether a family has successfully completed certain programs, Pump says.

“Sometimes I get the most meaning when I’ve worked with a family, five or six years ago and I run into them in the community, or they’ll come to an event that we’re throwing, and they’ll talk about how their kids have grown up, or how they are in the military and so successful, or, some even remark like how Child & Family Service might have saved their lives.”

Pump says the program she is most proud of starting is Hope and Healing, which helps children who have been victimized by sexual trauma to receive trauma-related care and counseling.

CFS recognized that many of those displaced by the August 2023 wildfires on Maui were children, so it provided mental health resources and expanded its tutoring program, Hale O Hulu, to help students get back on track if they had fallen behind.

Amanda Pump speaks to students at Hawaii Pacific University about the history and impact of Child & Family Service in Hawaii.

The wildfires intensified many problems. “We’re seeing more child abuse and neglect cases right now. We’re seeing more sexual assault hotline calls. We’re seeing more people needing basic needs and needing housing. And we’re really seeing a lot of our staff worried like, ‘Hey, am I going to get outpriced from Maui?’” Pump says.

CFS has a staff of nearly 400 and a $37.8 million budget for fiscal year 2026. Most of its money comes from federal, state and county governments and 21% comes from private funding, but cuts this year by the federal government have created uncertainty about the future.

“This is a concern all nonprofit leaders face,” Pump says. “We don’t have certainty about what lies ahead, which puts us in difficult situations – how do we uphold our promises to the community or meet our ethical obligations when the necessary resources aren’t guaranteed? It takes a significant toll on the well-being of both leaders and nonprofit staff.”

Few things are as inextricably tied to Hawaiʻi’s culture as a fragrant and colorful lei. They’re stacked high on the shoulders of graduates, slipped over the necks of wide-eyed visitors, or draped on community leaders at official events.  

Lei making has a rich and vibrant history across the Islands. Yet over recent decades, the bulk of the lei-making industry has moved offshore, to foreign lands where growers and lei-makers string flowers into strands and sell them back cheaply to us here in Hawai’i. 

Now, the Lei Poinaʻole Project hopes to turn that around. The project created by the nonprofit BEHawaiʻi aims to revitalize and strengthen the local lei industry through community engagement and advocacy. The main mission of the group is to uplift local flower growers and lei makers to preserve the traditions of lei in Hawaiʻi. 

Launched three years ago, the program has engaged propagators on each of the main islands in hopes of building pilot projects into a statewide network of flower growers, lei-makers and vendors that can flourish as it did in the past.  

“You think about Hawaiʻi, you think about a lei,” says Brook Lee, secretary of BEHawaiʻi, who helped focus the nonprofit’s attention on the needs of struggling lei flower growers and lei makers.  

So far, the Lei Poinaʻole Project has connected with 26 existing growers, 22 new growers and 7 propagators. The goal is not just to support the big farmers, but small and medium-sized growers so that a cottage industry can thrive once again.

Sylvia Hussey

“The objective of the project at the end is to have the Lei Poinaʻole Coalition,” adds BEHawai‘i Executive Director Sylvia Hussey. “The lei project is a mechanism in which to form the coalition” that will carry on even after initial startup efforts cease. 

Lee remembers the idea for the Project stemmed from a conversation she had with a lei store owner who told her in 2020 that the lei industry was in decline and needed help. That conversation stuck with her, and when BEHawaiʻi began considering projects to fund, the memory resurfaced. The idea to support a statewide lei network blossomed. 

Lee explains: “There are a lot of people in the community who just didn’t have a touchpoint or a place, or the space, to be able to think about the idea of stewarding this thing, because it’s farm to table, which is important, but that has been the whole sort of agricultural space here in Hawaiʻi for a very long time. And it’s necessary, but we’re just trying to follow in their footsteps and expand the conversation around.” 

In 2022, the group was awarded a three-year grant from the Federal Administration for Native Americans. The grant supported eight existing and 16 new farmers across the state. While the group knew the grant couldn’t solve the problem in just a few years, it helped them start the conversations needed to build the coalition.  

Lee says they aim to help growers who have been quietly maintaining but are at a breaking point and need support. Besides foreign competitors, farmers are facing agricultural diseases and beetle infestations that are devastating long-established farms. When they contacted the USDA for help, she says, some farmers said their concerns were dismissed and they were told to simply burn the trees. 

“We’re hoping to be able to set people up, because we can’t fund it forever, but we wanted to just sort of try to piece it into a way that they can know that they’re certain CTHAR will help,” Lee says, referring to the UH Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources. 

CTHAR has been holding workshops to teach people how to plant certain flowers. Experts take the participants on a walking tour of their properties to assess what their problems may be or what they should focus on.  

After the assessments, some farms are encouraged to propagate flowers in locations that have suitable growing conditions.  

Meanwhile, the Lei Poinaʻole Project has been expanding connections between lei-making families and farmers. They’ve had to overcome obstacles, too, including some growers who were hesitant about sharing details about their sites and growing practices.   

“One of the first things we explain about the project is that the project takes none of the production. We just want to help them, if it’s more plants, if it is knowledge, pest control,” Hussey says. Their focus, she says, is: “How can we help them keep all of their production and how they want to distribute that, whether it’s commercially or [through] family.” 

The Project representatives also ask growers how the group can support them through policy changes or by assisting with general practices. Everyone in Hawaiʻi farms differently, Lee says, and each person will favor certain flowers that are culturally based and close to peoples’ ohana or have a special connection to wherever they’re living. 

“A lot of times they don’t like it when people come in and try to tell them how to do something that they are doing for a very long time, there’s some cultural sensitivity around it, right?” Lee says. “Because, of course, they should know how to do it. They’ve been doing it for generations. Yeah, that’s their kuleana. And no one’s here to tell you that your kuleana is wrong or bad. You’ve been doing it. You’ve got the proof. The boots are on the ground.” 

While respecting current practices, Hussey says the farmers in the program also share their knowledge with the next generation and in the process gain a scientific grounding in how best to grow their flowers.

Insight from a New Grower  

The propagation site on Hawaiʻi Island may be furthest along among the pilot projects. It is coordinated by David Fuertes, executive director of the nonprofit Kahua Paʻa Mua. On a five-acre property in the North Kohala community of Kapaʻau, Fuertes has cuttings of a diverse range of flowering plants that, once they sprout roots, are distributed to five families to plant on their own land. 

Flower varieties in the mix include crown flower, pikake, puakenikeni, ʻākulikuli, ʻōlena as well as more common plumeria and orchids. 

Under a makeshift greenhouse, a watering system emits a spray of water for 20 seconds every hour, keeping the plants moist. The team meets regularly to discuss best practices for dipping the cutting stems into homemade root hormone mixtures that enhance root growth. They take measurements and share data so they can replicate the results that are most favorable. 

The first batch of cuttings have been transplanted, and flowers should be ready within a matter of months. 

“The families will supply local lei makers, and they can make their own lei as well,” said Fuertes. “It’s a community-based economic development program. After the initial group of growers are established, we can expand to the next generation of families.” 

Fuertes has a special connection to lei making. His late sister, Nancy Fuertes Ueno, was an award-winning lei maker on Kauaʻi. 

On the one-year anniversary of her death in September last year, Fuertes inaugurated the Aunty Nancy Lei Aloha Garden on his land in her memory in hopes of preserving the art of lei-making. 

At the launch ceremony, Fuertes told a gathering of about 100 people that while the vast majority of lei makers’ flowers come to Hawaiʻi from foreign countries, he hopes this program will help rekindle an interest in lei-making in the Islands. 

“Here in Kohala, we want to make the change. If we can get everybody to grow flowers and get farmers switching or intercropping with flower lei, we can bring the price down for lei,” he said.  

In his blessing to dedicate the site, Kahu Kealoha Sugiyama explained the social and spiritual role of lei. 

“When you pick a flower, it’s a memory between you and the receiver,” Sugiyama explained. “It starts out with one memory, one flower, and you keep adding and adding until the lei is completed. And what was just a single memory, now it becomes a story, a story between you and the lei maker. That story is precious.” 

When Hussey enlisted Fuertes to join the state-wide effort, she already knew his background — he had been her former high school teacher. 

“I was born and raised in Kohala. I’m a Kohala high school graduate, and so when we were looking for a propagation site in Kohala, there was no question who it needed to be. It would be my former ag teacher from high school who has a farm,” Hussey says. “And that’s an example of leveraging relationships to be able to find in the community those propagator sites.” 

Fuertes remembers Hussey developed an early interest in agriculture when she was one of his students.  

He said he recalls Hussey started a paʻu unit in Kohala, the ceremonial equestrian groups that ride in parades, with both the horses and female riders adorned with elaborate lei displays. 

“That was one of her first involvements with lei back in high school,” Fuertes says. 

History of Lei in Hawaiʻi 

Lei making traces back to the early Polynesian settlers in Hawaiʻi, and besides the decorative appeal, lei also served as a tribute to the gods and in some cases signified social rank in society.  

Early lei included nuts, shells and bones as well as a variety of plants and flowers. The maile lei, an open string lei woven with fragrant leaves from vines that grow in cool mountain forests, is considered among the most cherished types of lei. 

Demand for maile lei has soared in conjunction with official events and celebrations. And with the arrival of tourists, and the preference for fragrant plumeria and other brightly colored flowers, lei making became a cottage industry across the islands. 

“So what we have heard from conversations from lei sellers is that the supply is getting harder and harder to get and everybody knows, just by experience, maile as an example right there, very rarely can you get a maile of Big Island, maile of Kauaʻi, fresh maile. It’s being replaced by ti leaf,” Hussey says. 

Different lei carry different meanings with the color, flower and occasion. The maile lei was once revered by aliʻi and is given as a sign of love, respect or a blessing. 

“One of the differentiators is that it is not the demand side of lei,” she says. “There will always be a demand. It’s on the growing side and the mitigating [efforts] helping more growers there, and anybody, not just commercial growers, but family growers, school growers, backyard growers, more lei flower growers.” 

Matching Price with Value 

Another goal of the project is to change consumers’ understanding of how much labor goes into lei. More than just its price, lei hold the spirit of the farmers and those who sewed it together.   

“We know that monetizing or valuing lei is not just in a price point,” Hussey says. “We all know family members at a wedding, even graduation or Mother’s Day, that someone has given you a lei, that they have grown, they have sewn themselves, is worth so much more than when you purchase.   

“And that also influences the price point. People complain, ʻOh, the pikake is $15 a strand. My gosh, if you knew how much effort it was to grow that pikake and how valuable, you wouldn’t complain. You would value and mahalo the lei seller and the lei grower for that value.”  

The Lei Poinaʻole Project is seeking help to quantify the financial importance of lei in Hawaiʻi, starting with a baseline estimate of current local production. 

Every island has its own relationship to lei making and sewing. Oʻahu has lei stands at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and many lei shops on Maunakea Street in Chinatown.  

One shop in Chinatown is the family-owned Lin’s Lei Shop.  

Manager Tony Ngyuen says that it is difficult to measure how much work goes into a lei since everything is handmade. Some flowers have a special way to be plucked and processed, and can be sewn in different ways. The cost of the lei reflects the input of farmers as well.   

The most popular lei are usually the white fragrant flowers like pikake, puakenikeni, ginger and tuberose. Ngyuen explains that when picked, tuberose has a brownish tint on the outside, so it is cleaned to be white and peeled to be used in lei.  

Lin’s Lei Shop purchases pre-made orchid flower lei from Thailand since the labor is cheaper and they sell for less.  

“They create a product that is long-lasting and economical,” Ngyuen says. “It makes sense, and it provides a strong supply for the demand here.” 

One pre-made orchid lei in the shop’s lineup, already made in Thailand, is the famed Christina style lei. The Christina lei was designed in 1990 by Beth Lopez and created to honor the memory of her daughter Christina who died from lupus when she was 22. The design uses a needle and thread to sew together over 500 orchid centers. 

“Imagine the amount of work involved to make this,” says Ngyuen. “They just take a single petal from a single flower, and they create this,” he said.  

Some orchid lei have a negative reputation for being cheap or imported, but Hawaiʻi Island used to have its own honohono orchid that was specially farmed.  

 “We don’t want people to get a bad rep that lei orchids are bad, like orchids are part of our history and our culture as Hawaiian people,” Lee of BEHawaiʻi says. “But these are a different type of orchid that are mass produced in Thailand brought in by the pounds of loads.”  

Other than the orchid lei, Ngyuen says that all of the other lei he sells are handmade in Hawaiʻi, and in the back of their Maunakea Street store, family members can be seen making lei. They get their flowers from multiple farms and hobbyists across Hawaiʻi. 

While most lei are made in-store, sometimes they purchase pre–made lei from people who have trees in their backyards. Ngyuen pointed out a traditional lei made from hala, the fruit of the pandanus tree, that was made by a recreational lei maker. He said that it’s an older style of lei that isn’t usually sold anymore. 

Many lei shops, including Lin’s Lei Shop, sell flowers and lei to the mainland for graduations and other celebrations.  

“It seems like the lei culture is spreading,” he says. “So now, especially on the West Coast, it’s very common for people to receive lei for graduation. The whole West Coast, right from Washington to California, they all use lei, I think it’s good. Do I have a problem with them selling at Costco? No, not really.” 

“Support local if you can,” he says. “But other than that, enjoy a lei, enjoy the craftsmanship, enjoy the artistry. And yeah, support the industry.” 

A year of corporate profits in Hawai‘i was overshadowed by a massive loss at Hawaiian Electric Industries, parent of the utility at the center of litigation over the deadly Lahaina wildfire that killed 102 people in August 2023.

Once among the state’s most profitable companies, Hawaiian Electric reported a more than $1.42 billion loss in 2024 – driven largely by a $4.04 billion wildfire settlement with thousands of Maui residents and businesses.

Plaintiffs alleged the utility failed to shut off power lines despite high-wind warnings that preceded the fire. The company, which supplies electricity to about 95% of Hawai‘i’s population, agreed to pay nearly half the settlement amount.

The state, Maui County and other defendants, including Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications, also agreed to contribute to the settlement.

Hawaiian Electric’s 2024 loss was greater than the combined total annual profits tallied by 53 companies and organizations in the state during the same period, according to the annual ranking by Hawaii Business Magazine of the most profitable companies in the Islands. The list includes all the local companies whose data is publicly available or was submitted to us.

Hawaiian Electric president and CEO Scott Seu said in the company’s annual report that the Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruling earlier this year to allow settlement funds to be released helped “to move the settlement forward and provide more clarity for our company’s path toward reestablishing financial stability.”

The amount of Hawaiian Electric’s loss was also seven times the size of the company’s prior year profit of nearly $200 million.

To help pay for its portion of the settlement, Hawaiian Electric sold 90% of its stake in American Savings Bank to independent investors for $405 million in cash.

“Importantly, the proceeds from this transaction support our efforts to rebuild our financial strength while creating flexibility for how we finance Maui wildfire-related obligations and key utility initiatives, such as wildfire risk reduction,” Seu told shareholders.

“We are deeply committed to advancing our wildfire mitigation efforts, and since launching an expanded wildfire safety strategy in the wake of the Maui wildfires, Hawaiian Electric has rapidly advanced efforts to reduce the risk of wildfires ignited by its equipment.”

The program provides shelter and services, so residents have a base from which to secure vital documents, apply for jobs, begin work and open bank accounts while being part of a community of like-minded people looking to make a new start. Right now, the program has 40 participants spread across three sites, one of them supervised by Tana Alualu, who himself spent seven years behind bars.

Eddie Reed, incarcerated intermittently since 2010, says he finds inspiration in the program’s combination of freedom and support, which he says has created career opportunities for him and fueled his personal growth. When you talk with Reed, you realize that, for him, simply living a “normal” life is remarkable.

“My worst jail experience was in 2019,” says Reed, who works at Waikiki Market. “This time … I told myself it was time to change. I had exhausted every option. My family didn’t want to be around me anymore – not my grandpa, not my friends. I had no one left and I knew I couldn’t keep living that way.”

He shares a space with roommate Jerrick Kaanoi within the communal village called the IHS Re-Entry Village of Redemption.

“The best part is, after work I can come home to this space, a space I call home, a space where I can feel normal. … It gives us relief, like, hey, we’re normal,” he says. “We’re doing something normal, and it keeps you striving for better opportunities.”

Kaanoi, with a 17-year prison history, says he has found safety and stability at IHS, in stark contrast to his past.

“My mentality has changed. I used to let heartaches, bad experiences and mistakes pile up, but I don’t want to regret my life anymore. Now I’m on a path that feels good, safe and possible … so I keep moving forward.”

Kaanoi recently received a welcome surprise: a promotion to grocery manager at Waikiki Market.

“Seeing your boss see something in you that you never saw in yourself before – that’s a wonderful feeling,” he says.

A criminal past can be a constant obstacle, a stigma that lingers long after a person is released from prison. “Once people find out about our past, they don’t want to give us a chance,” Reed says.

Yet securing a job is part of the journey. That’s where the federal work opportunity tax credit can make a difference; it offers businesses financial incentives to hire individuals with criminal backgrounds.

As the program’s leader, Alualu’s mentorship is crucial. He brings an infectious energy and an unwavering belief in the participants’ potential, and he understands the challenges they face.

“When you give somebody freedom and they’re ready to make a change, they’ll move mountains – not only for themselves but for those around them,” Alualu says.

“The biggest reward for me is seeing that transformation. Not many ex-felons would do what [Reed and Kaanoi] have done, and that’s what keeps me going. It’s a reward greater than any paycheck.”

Says Reed: “We come out of an environment where we’ve been locked up, where someone is always telling us what to do and how to do it. But here, it’s different. Being here feels normal. In this environment, I don’t feel like I’m on parole or like I’ve been locked up. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I have freedom and peace.”

You can donate to IHS at ihshawaii.org/donate.

The nonprofit says it serves about 3,000 individuals and families each year through a preschool, a Healthy Families program that serves expectant parents and caregivers of newborns, and support services for sexual assault survivors.

Most preschool classes are in a 2,500-square-foot wooden cottage built in 1926 as a private home. The YWCA’s campus also includes a community pool that closed in 2013.

The preschool cottage “has been very well utilized for almost 100 years, and the buildings that we will be renovating are for the most part completely unusable,” says CEO Kathleen McGilvray.

The site’s last major renovation was in the 1980s when the community helped rebuild the YWCA’s program center after arson destroyed the original building.

The goal of the $21 million campaign – called Building a Bright Future for Our Keiki, Families & Community – is to transform the YWCA’s historic campus in three phases. So far, almost half of the $6 million Phase 1 budget has been raised.

When the Hawai‘i Island branch of the YWCA launched in 1919, the county had less than one-third of today’s population, says state Sen. Herbert M. “Tim” Richards III, chair of the leadership committee for the YWCA’s fundraising campaign. “We need to build for a brighter future, which means taking care of our next generation, the keiki.”

The YWCA says its plans call for a new preschool, a multipurpose building and a small housing complex with 10 units for the community’s most vulnerable women and families.

The preschool will feature four dedicated classrooms for children ages 2 to 5, shaded outdoor play areas, covered walkways and a commercial kitchen to support expanded meal service and nutritional education.

“There’s a huge need for child care, especially quality child care and the kind of transformative work our teachers do. And now they will have a beautiful new facility that they deserve, a preschool that’s worthy of our children,” says McGilvray.

In Phase 1, underway now, the pool is being demolished and the preschool expanded. Architect Fleming & Associates expects the first phase to be completed by summer 2026. The preschool is currently at capacity with 90 students and a full waitlist. The new campus will accommodate 130 children.

“Preschool is critical for children’s development, socialization and serves a critical workforce need. Moms and dads can’t work if they don’t have a safe and accredited place to take their children,” McGilvray says. “We are setting children up for success. They are ready to learn. We hear that all the time from kindergarten teachers.”

The Healthy Families staff works with parents on individual and family needs, as well as their babies’ developmental stages and screenings, and connects them with information and support resources. The services are free and confidential.

Since the 1970s, the YWCA has also supported victims of sexual assault. The YWCA says its program is open 24/7 and is the only rape crisis center on the island with short-term crisis intervention and long-term confidential counseling. It also helps with forensic exams and decisions on whether to file police reports.

The fundraising campaign seeks support from government grants, foundations, businesses and individuals.

The YWCA is located just down the road from the Palace Theater, at a historic crossroads. “From a development standpoint, this is a really exciting project in the downtown area. With its high visibility, I think this is going to be a really pivotal project for the revitalization of downtown Hilo,” McGilvray says.

HomeAid Hawai‘i is a nonprofit that’s been creating affordable, community-centered housing since 2015.

“It’s very black and white,” says HomeAid Executive Director Kimo Carvalho. “You build homes, you reduce the homeless population.”

HomeAid has completed five kauhale projects on O‘ahu and is developing others on Maui and Hawai‘i Island, among other projects. HomeAid expanded into two teams after the Lahaina fires, one focused on kauhale projects statewide, and the other on Maui’s Ka La‘i Ola, a multiphase project housing those affected by the wildfires.

“Kauhale is a Hawaiian village community concept focused on communal living,” explains the HomeAid website. Using “trauma-informed design principles,” it provides affordable housing and community support to assist those transitioning out of homelessness.

Images courtesy: HomeAid Hawai‘i

“You want to create spaces meant to heal people,” Carvalho says. That includes a blend of indoor and outdoor spaces, plus community and private spaces  that allow residents to “live naturally,” as opposed to the strict structure of traditional shelters. Kauhale projects have been built in Honolulu near A‘ala Park and on Middle Street, in Kāne‘ohe and elsewhere on O‘ahu.

HomeAid applied the methods used in its kauhale projects when asked by the state government to be the lead developer of Ka La‘i Ola, a community for those displaced by the Lahaina fires.

The housing project broke ground in April 2024 and its first residents moved in Aug. 9. Today, Ka La‘i Ola houses 140 families across 153 modular units.

The ultimate goal is to build 450 units on the 57-acre site – roughly the size of 43 football fields or about half the size of Ala Moana Beach Park. The modular units can last several decades and can be moved and reused in different housing projects, according to Kalewa Bancaco.

Bancaco, born and raised on Maui, became senior project manager for HomeAid’s Maui Housing Initiative in May 2024.

Images courtesy: HomeAid Hawai‘i

“It meant that I could help my community,” she says. “I can listen to the community directly, my family, and basically just advocate for them, make sure their voices are being heard and implemented.”

Ka La‘i Ola was designed to bring people back home and back together, Bancaco says, and will eventually include playgrounds, a community center, resiliency center and community spaces for barbecues and other gatherings.

HomeAid has partnered with Hui No Ke Ola Pono, a nonprofit health care center, to offer health care to Ka La‘i Ola residents.

HomeAid’s public and private partnerships help keep kauhale housing affordable. “We’re truly talking deep affordability, in the amount of like $350 to $750 a month for rent,” Carvalho says.

“[Residents] need that kind of price point so they can save. The more they earn, the more they save, the more they can actually work toward that next step.”

Images courtesy: HomeAid Hawai‘i

Carvalho describes what HomeAid’s projects mean to its staff, partners and the people it serves.

“Every project that we do is not just a project. There’s a lot more to it that we own and we become connected to, and then we value our approach, because it’s more than just development.”

Children, families and school groups that come to the center next to Kaka‘ako Waterfront Park learn while playing with displays and toys that engage their senses of touch, sight, hearing and smell. Visitors first enter a large room filled with colorful displays, and an automated voice encourages them to “imagine a world where everything is kid-sized.”

On the center’s first floor, children can play countless roles, such as a weather reporter, bus driver, clerk or scientist. One area helps children learn how the different parts of their bodies, such as the heart and the mouth, work together. The first and second floors include a stage with costumes and props and a puppet theater where children can perform stories straight from their imaginations.

The second floor explains the history of Hawai‘i, while the floor above it contains exhibits explaining the history and culture of various countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Korea and China. In addition, a water exhibit teaches children about rainforests here and around the world.

Before founding the center inside the Dole Cannery in 1989 with only volunteers, Yajima visited children’s museums across the mainland to see what types of exhibits and programs engaged children. In 1998, the center moved into its current building with 45,000 square feet of space – almost the size of a football field – spread across three floors.

Usher says one of her proudest achievements is the center’s Discovery Camp program, which started in 2005 and is often offered during school breaks. The camps have themes and include hands-on activities, outdoor play, a visit to the center’s exhibits and a supervised lunch.

During the Covid pandemic, Usher says, the center rose to meet community needs by keeping some programs open even though the center itself was closed due to state mandates.

“It felt amazing to really be able to support our community … It really became a win-win for everyone, because we were able to care for the children of essential workers and keep our teachers employed,” Usher says.

“Being able to see the kids still interacting with each other when they would normally have to be at home, that’s incredible.”

Since the pandemic, the center has resumed all of its programs, including toddler play time, opportunities for field trips and private birthday parties.

Usher grew up playing in the center with her sisters and other children. It was “like a second home,” she says. As she grew older, she became a teenage volunteer, gained a passion for early childhood education and later earned a master’s in education from Harvard University.

“I really feel like the center is an extension of my family,” she says.

Usher isn’t the only one with a life-long involvement in the center; she says full-circle moments happen frequently, when individuals who attended the center’s programs as children go on to volunteer or work there.

Michael Pietsch has watched the center and its members grow. Pietsch attended Punahou School with founder Loretta Yajima and has sat on the center’s board for over 20 years.

“It’s really a labor of love and Loretta lived it to the fullest,” he says.

Twinkle Borge was the leader and soul of Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae – the “Refuge of Wai‘anae” – and when she died in August, I worried about the future of her community of houseless people.

At Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae roughly 200 people, a quarter of them children, live in makeshift shelters next to the Wai‘anae Small Boat Harbor. But their dream was to build a community where they could live together in permanent homes, so they and their supporters raised $1.4 million – enough to buy 20 acres in Wai‘anae Valley in 2020. They named the place Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae Mauka, or just “Mauka” for short.

Residents say nobody could possibly fill Borge’s “big slippahs.” Nonetheless, construction has begun on the Mauka community, whose organizational foundation was laid by Borge.

Pia Bear is one of six overseers that Borge appointed before she died. Each of those overseers represents a different section of the village; Bear represents Section 1 at both the harbor and Mauka.

She is among the 24 residents of Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae who now live at Mauka. The handful of container homes they’re in now are temporary. As construction of more permanent homes is completed, more residents will move into the valley.

Bear moved up to Mauka a year ago but says she still visits the harbor village “almost every day. I have a sister who’s still there. I have a niece still there, and a great-nephew and a lot of friends.”

When I asked how the villagers are making decisions without Borge leading them, Bear says, “She already had it set in place. She had six overseers, and then she had her captains in each section, and then she had her co-captains in each section, and we just kept it the same way she had.

“So with the six overseers, they pretty much come together and make the final decision on the harbor. We vote, and as long as we get four votes, it’ll pass. And then up here, it’s just basically the people living here now that make decisions for Mauka.”

Bear says she tries to help solve problems when neighbors come to her. If they’re fighting, she says, she’s a mediator. “Up here, I collect everybody’s maintenance fees, give them receipts, make sure my neighbor’s OK, make sure nobody’s coming in and out during the night, making sure your home is safe and your neighbor is safe. To me, that’s just daily stuff.”

Still, Bear admits the community’s overseers are struggling to hold down the fort as well as “Mamas” did, using Borge’s nickname.

“We got a handful that’s just running wild right now, that don’t care, that won’t even listen. But as the six overseers, it’s hard to do what Mamas did, because all she needed to do was talk to them and they would stop. With us six overseers, it’s a lot more challenging.”

Turning a Vision Into Reality 

James Pakele is the co-founder and president of Dynamic Community Solutions, a nonprofit that emerged in 2017 as an offshoot of Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae. Pakele says he’s never been houseless himself but, like many of the camp’s residents, he grew up in Wai‘anae in poverty.

He says his family was “lucky because we got to live Hawaiian homestead. We was poor too, but we still fortunate because we’re not sitting on the [Hawaiian Home Lands] list when plenty guys on the beach still sitting on the list and people dying on the list,” Pakele says.

He believes becoming houseless can happen to anybody: “You take the breadwinner in your household. One cancer diagnosis and you’re done. The breadwinner in your household driving to work, boom, accident. You’re done. You think it cannot happen to you, but it can.”

Pakele helped lead discussions with then-Gov. David Ige and other government officials, including a pivotal moment in 2018 when he, Borge and others persuaded Ige not to sweep the harbor village.

“We told him, ‘No break the community. Let us move,’ ” recalls Pakele. What Pakele and other community leaders proposed was ambitious: Raise enough money to purchase land and legally build permanent housing for Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae’s residents.

Ige was persuaded. “I appreciate that he believed us, because I don’t know if I would have believed myself if somebody was telling me what I was telling him,” Pakele says.

The first donor, Nareit Foundation, contributed $150,000, which was then matched through a challenge grant. That garnered media attention and more donations poured in. In just two years, Dynamic Community Solutions raised $1.4 million, enough to buy the 20 acres in Wai‘anae Valley known today as Mauka.

Cost-Efficient, Communal Communities 

Construction, which began in 2020, is also being funded by donations and grants. Pakele says the community plans to build tiny houses in eight phases: The first three phases will each include six to eight duplexes that can accommodate about 25 people.

“Phase one is done,” says Pakele, and he hopes phase two will be completed in April. At full buildout, there will be enough housing for 250 residents.

The goal is to make the Mauka village cost-efficient, which means individual homes will not have kitchens and bathrooms. “If you pull those out of the house and you have them share that, then you’re building bedrooms, and that’s simple and easy,” Pakele says.

The plan is to build communal restrooms and kitchen spaces throughout the Mauka village, although Pakele says the community is still figuring out how many will be needed.

Mauka’s 24/7 indoor plumbing and electricity will be a major upgrade from conditions at the harbor encampment down “Makai,” where residents rely on portable toilets, costly generators and limited time frames when they can use the harbor’s waterspouts to shower.

Pakele says Dynamic Community Solutions received a grant from the federal EPA to install five microgrid systems to generate electricity from solar panels, and three containerized farming systems in which temperature, water and lighting can be controlled. “That is going to be super exciting because that is going to merge technology with agriculture, and we’re going to be able to introduce it to our kids,” he says.

“The idea is to make food cheaper and offset that cost, but also make the healthier choice, the cheaper choice and the easier choice, because it’s going to be more available.” And having high-tech ag on the property may also provide a lucrative business opportunity for residents to earn money by selling the produce they grow.

Pakele expects residents will start moving into permanent Mauka structures soon, with kūpuna and those with disabilities getting top priority in phase two, which can accommodate them.

Pakele says Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae was the pilot project for the kauhale concept of communal villages for houseless people in Hawai‘i. He says it inspired kauhale villages “that they’re building all over the place. Going to help people. Please, please, do that.”

Pakele says there are three options for construction: “fast, cheap and good. Pick two, because you cannot have three. Fast and cheap not gonna be good. And good and fast not gonna be cheap.”

Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae prioritizes cost-efficiency and quality over speed. However, Pakele acknowledges that the community can take more time with the project since it’s not subject to the same public scrutiny that pressures government officials to complete tasks quickly.

Camping at the Village

Bear invited me to camp at the established village next to the small boat harbor so I could better understand what life is like there, and I jumped at the opportunity. It was culture shock. I had camped before, but just 24 hours living in a tent at the harbor made me better understand how hard it is to spend every day of your life without a cozy bed, hot showers, indoor plumbing, a stocked fridge and the security of a locked door.

That said, I rarely heard anyone complain about living there. Residents more often expressed how grateful they were to be a part of Pu‘uhonua o Wai‘anae’s community versus trying to make it on their own. I was also impressed by their resourcefulness in building makeshift shelters that they customize to feel like home.

During my stay, I shell hunted in the tidepools at the nearby beach with a few of the village’s keiki, played chess against (and lost) to longtime resident Shyann Rose, witnessed a glorious West Side sunset and spent hours talking story with villagers, including three siblings.

Twins Sandra and Kaulana are 11 and their sister, Haweo, is 9. They came to the village with their father in 2020. Kaulana said he likes living there, for the most part, because “it’s fun to meet new people.” But being houseless also makes them targets for bullies at school.

“A bunch of bullies tease me, saying that I’m homeless. … [But] my friends don’t treat me like that,” says Kaulana. Haweo adds that their teachers often remind them, “We don’t have a real wall and a roof, but this is still our home.”

I asked them about their aspirations. “When I grow up, I want to graduate college and be a photographer,” Haweo told me.

Kaulana added that he wants to have a successful life. “I want to graduate college and get a job so I can buy a house for me, my dad, my sisters. … One really big house for all of us to sleep in – with AC.”

After five years of living in the village by the harbor, the siblings and their father will soon move into a tiny house together in Mauka – a milestone that honors Borge’s legacy and vision.

Borge loved her community’s keiki and sought to break the cycle of generational trauma and homelessness.

“It’s not their fault; it’s their heritage,” she told me in 2023. “I want to go above and beyond to show them they can do better, that you can do it, you can make it happen. But you have to want it.”

To donate to Phase 2 of the tiny homes village being constructed in Wai‘anae Valley, please go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/phase-2-puuhonua-o-waianae. 

Onlookers could see the Avenger torpedo bomber spiraling, starting at 5,000 feet, then plummeting toward the ocean below. Onboard were three Navy men: Lt. Jay Manown Jr., aviation ordnanceman first class Anthony Di Petta and radioman first class Wilbur Mitts. The men were classified as missing in action after the crash, leaving their families without closure.

The crash occurred Sept. 10, 1944, while U.S. forces fought to gain control of the western Pacific islands of Palau during World War II. The men were among more than 81,000 American service members still classified as MIA from that war and other conflicts since, which left their relatives wondering: Where is my loved one?

However, advanced technology, coupled with historical research, has made it possible to locate and retrieve MIA service members, sometimes many decades later. Manown and his crew were lost for more than 70 years until their crash site was discovered by Project Recover in 2015.

Mission-Driven Research and Recovery 

Project Recover is a citizen-led nonprofit founded in 1993 that focuses on finding and repatriating MIA service members. “We feel that we represent the American collective in putting forth the resilient efforts to keep the solemn promise America makes to those who swear an oath to our Constitution that we will do everything we can to return them home should they fall in service to our nation,” says Derek Abbey, president and CEO of Project Recover.

In more than three decades, Project Recover has identified and documented sites associated with over 300 MIA service members. It works with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the Defense Department agency that officially identifies remains for repatriation.

Project Recover specializes in finding sites through years of research, but it sometimes needs outside help, especially for missions that require modern commercial diving methods. For that, it partners with Legion Undersea Services, a diving company headquartered in Honolulu.

Photos Courtesy: Chris Perez, Legion Undersea Services

Former Navy Divers Making a Difference   

Legion Undersea Services was founded by two retired Navy divers, Nick Zaborski and John Marsack. The men became close friends during their Navy careers, with Marsack eventually serving as best man in Zaborski’s wedding.

They retired from the military around the same time and stayed in touch, but both initially found working in the civilian world unrewarding. “We didn’t have enough sense of purpose,” Zaborski explains. “We needed something bigger than ourselves to work toward.”

They decided to start their own diving company, thinking they would focus on disaster relief. Not long after they began operating, Zaborski got a call from an old colleague that he’d worked with on a recovery mission in 2008 while still on active duty. During that mission, he was part of a team that recovered the remains of service members who had been missing since Sept. 1, 1944.

Recovering the “Babes in Arms”    

Zaborski was part of Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One at Hickam Air Force Base in 2008. When he got assigned to go to Palau, he thought it would be a fun getaway. His attitude shifted after seeing an image of the crew he would attempt to recover from the B-24 dubbed “Babes in Arms.” The bomber had crashed nine days before Manown’s and both crash sites were identified by Project Recover.

“I remember feeling like, wow, those guys, they’re in the prime of their life, and it was cut short and they’re down there,” Zaborski recalls. “If things were different, it could be them looking for us.” That experience set the mood for the mission.

Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One successfully recovered the remains of the “Babes in Arms” crew. For Zaborski, who knows from his own family how devastating it can be to have a loved one remain MIA, it was a transformative experience.

“I have an uncle from WWII who didn’t come back and I could always feel that loss, even when I was a little kid. I remember feeling it in the family,” Zaborski says.

Photos Courtesy: Chris Perez, Legion Undersea Services

A Final Resting Place   

Project Recover, in conjunction with groups like Legion Undersea Services, aims to give families closure.

In 2021, Legion Undersea Services partnered with Project Recover to retrieve Manown and his crew. On that first trip, the team was able to recover Di Petta and Mitts, but were unable to locate Manown. The remains of the two enlisted men were transferred to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency where they were formally identified, then released to their families.

Zaborski attended Mitts’ funeral and was moved upon meeting his family. “It’s a good thing to see old wounds getting healed and people getting this generational sense of absence finally closed,” he says.

Roughly two years later, Marsack and Zaborski returned to Palau to continue their search for Manown. Eventually, they found his flight seat and control stick and soon after recovered his remains.

Like his brothers-in-arms, Manown’s remains went to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency for identification before being released to family members.

In October 2024, more than 80 years after the crash, Manown was laid to rest in his hometown of Kingwood, West Virginia. Relatives of each crew member attended the service.

Christopher Perez, another former Navy diver and the media specialist for Legion Undersea Services, was also there. “I was asked by many, ‘Why do you guys risk your life for these missions?’ and my response was because all of us divers wore the same uniform these guys did, and if any of us were to go missing, I’d hope my brothers would come looking for me, no matter how long it took,” he says.

“At the end of the day, that’s all we’re doing, looking for our lost brothers who deserve to come back home with dignity.” 

Family Promise of Hawai‘i is dedicated to keeping homeless families together, with a special emphasis on helping children.

“They’re not usually the focus of as much public policy and media coverage, but there are an estimated 1 in 30 young children in Hawai‘i who have experienced homelessness annually,” says Ryan Catalani, executive director of the local nonprofit.

“Experiences of homelessness and housing instability during those young ages can have a disproportionate effect over the rest of their lives. [Those experiences] can change the architecture of the brain and can lead to impacts in education, economic well-being, and even physical and mental health as children grow up.”

In 2024, FPH served over 500 families – a total of about 1,700 individuals – which is twice as many as in 2023 and a record for the organization. Catalani attributes the increase to an expansion of services on Maui after the Lahaina wildfires and the suspension of many Covid-related government rental assistance programs.

Circumstances change year to year, but the high cost of housing and the overall cost of living remain the root causes of homelessness in Hawai‘i, Catalani says.

He says families often reach out to Family Promise as their last option after exhausting all other financial and shelter support.

“Some families have a built-in safety net of other family members they can tap on and some families don’t.”

FPH’s main program provides families with private interim housing at no-cost. While there, families work with case managers to identify obstacles they might face and develop “re-housing” plans.

Once families leave the program, their case managers monitor their housing status. About 90% of reachable families are still housed after a year, says Catalani.

The nonprofit aims to keep families together long-term even in difficult times.

“Case management is at the core of all of our work, and I think this is just a fancy term for one-on-one individualized support that is housing-focused, meaning that is our first goal but it’s also very holistic,” he says.

“We’re not just trying to change the family’s life in the short term, but change the life of the next generation and moving forward.”

FPH’s second ‘Ohana Navigation Center opened in Wahiawā in December, providing temporary housing for up to 12 families at a time. The first center is in Mō‘ili‘ili.

Values

Respecting the dignity and worth of all people and treating everyone equally and fairly is one of FPH’s three core values, Catalani says.

“What it comes down to is believing every person, as an individual, has value,” he says. “That trickles down into a lot of our other values.”

The other core values are being housing-focused and connecting with other organizations, such as Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies and Continuum of Care, a federal program focused on homeless people.

FPH was founded in 2005 through grassroots efforts and relies heavily on continued community support, Catalani says.

“It’s that spirit of community engagement that I think has always made FPH so special.”

You can volunteer or donate at familypromisehawaii.org.