Hawaiian community in Alaska organizes relief for Maui fire victims

On Friday afternoon, Tasha Kahele’s phone was blowing up. 

“I have been overwhelmed with calls,” she said, getting into the driver’s seat of her daughter’s car.

Kahele is a multitasker with two jobs and multiple businesses. That afternoon, she was on her way to Costco to pick up pizzas for volunteers. At the same time, she fielded a stream of phone calls and texts from organizations offering donations for Maui locals left stranded by the fires.

“People were just waiting for an outlet, a way to help,” she said. 

Kahele’s family runs Lei’s Poke Stop at Tikahtnu Commons in Northeast Anchorage. In the parking lot outside, her family and friends loaded cases of water bottles, diapers and non-perishable food donated by individuals and local businesses into a Matson trailer.

Kahele and her family moved to Alaska from Oahu 15 years ago. She moved not expecting to know anyone, until she realized how vibrant Alaska’s Hawaiian community was. Some families have been here for generations and many still have deep roots back home, she said.

“Even though we’re thousands of miles away we’re still affected by it, and when they hurt, we hurt, everyone hurts,” she said. “It’s just a time that we are using to come together and do something good and make something good out of the devastation.”

Wildfires killed at least 99 people on Maui last week, according to Hawaii officials. It’s the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in over a century. Fires destroyed the historic town of Lahaina and scorched more than 2,000 acres, leaving thousands of residents without homes. 

Watching the tragedy unfold on social media, Kahele said she felt a sense of hopelessness at first. But, as she explained at the Costco pizza counter, she’s not one to sit on the sidelines.

“I woke up [Thursday] morning, I said, ‘Okay, enough crying, we’re praying.’ It was just so much stuff going on. We have to do something,” Kahele said.

She messaged her family group text and called local Hawaiian churches and Pacific Islander organizations. Within a few hours, she secured donated shipping container space to send relief items home. 

“Everybody came together. Within less than 24 hours we had U.S. Foods donate pallets of water, pallets of non-perishable food,” she said. “We had single households, people that we don’t even know, that brought truckloads of stuff.”

At the Tikahtnu parking lot, donations rolled in all weekend. 

“People are just coming by, it’s literally a drive-through,” said Anchorage resident Olani Saunoa, who directs purchasing for U.S. Foods, a wholesale food company. “People are dropping off clothes and food and diapers and more water. Everybody’s just showing up in spurts, it’s nice.”

Saunoa’s family in Maui is safe, but she called on U.S. Foods for donations to help out their neighbors.

Within a day, she said, they had enough water to fill up half of a 40-foot trailer, plus 20 cases of Spam.

With children running underfoot and music blasting, spirits were high at the makeshift donation center. 

“Even in a devastating moment, a time of emergency, that really is just the Polynesian aloha spirit, right?” Saunoa laughed.

Kahele and her team gathered about 60,000 pounds of donations over the weekend, and she’s hoping to organize more. 

The most important items, like generators, will arrive in Maui by air cargo later this week, and the rest will go on a barge to arrive early next month. Kahele plans to fly to Maui in the next few days to be there when they unload.

Kahele says anyone looking to donate can reach out to Kings Alaska churches in Eagle River and Wasilla. She says the most needed items right now are menstrual products, emergency equipment like lanterns and headlights and plastic tote containers.