Lahaina Fires
By Alesi Meyers-Tuimavave
In light of the Lahaina fires that happened in Maui that destroyed their entire city, Ke Kalahea asked Kauāakeakua about his feelings towards support that’s been given to Lahaina and students from Lahaina or Maui in general, from UH Hilo.
It should be noted that Kauāakeakua is not from Lahaina specifically, but was still affected by the fires given that he is from the island.
“As a person born and raised on Maui, a person who has friends and distant aunties and uncles who have lost their houses to the fire - I think there’s a lot more that can be done,” Kauāakeakua said when asked if he feels Lahaina as a whole is being supported by UH Hilo. “I’m not saying it’s just UH Hilo; UH Hilo can only do as much as UH Hilo can.”
“It’s within the whole UH system how much support a college can give,” Kauāakeakua said. “I think within the student body there’s a lot more activity, especially when it comes to social media. When things burst and get trendy, information goes out like nothing. The college takes a little bit longer to make those progresses.”
“I think there’s a lot more that can be done, but I also understand there’s things in place that make it really tough for support, for finances, and even stuff like scholarships to be done within an instant for these students,” Kauāakeakua said.
Ke Kalahea asked Kauāakeakua if he feels that Lahaina students at UH Hilo specifically are being supported, where he stated the following:
“In some ways yes, in some ways no. When we’re talking about support I see it more on a personal level; between student and student, between teacher and student, between faculty and student - there’s that type of support. But between institution and person, I don't feel that as much - that students have that support.”
“Maui doesn’t feel like it’s in a regular flow, a regular state that it used to be, a status quo, where Hilo feels like nothing happened,” Kauāakeakua said. “To lose an entire town, if we can imagine Hilo being gone within the day; the amount of stress and trauma students gained through one night - it could be alleviated a little bit, a little bit, by other students and teachers. Like we have shirts and stuff that say Maui strong, but we don’t hear anything about creating UH Hilo’s funds for Lahaina students or we don’t have food drives for those students in need.”
“Within the personal level there’s a lot of support,” Kauāakeakua went on to state. “Especially what I see in Maui, is that the community comes together when they need it, and here in Hawai’i we’re very community based; we rally together when we need to. But within the institution, there’s parameters and there’s things that need to be signed and things you need to go through in a certain order to get what you want. Because of that, support takes much longer. For me, I don’t feel that students get enough.”
Kauāakeakua goes on to state the specific ways in which he believes UH Hilo can better support its students. He breaks this support down into three different levels.
“The first thing is education,” Kauāakeakua said. “I feel like that’s the easiest part - to tell people about Lahaina, teach people about Lahaina… so that students who are from Lahaina feel seen. Like, my memories of Lahaina are only memories now because I can’t go visit. These compacted memories are all within that one space.”
The following contacts can be reached for Academic Needs specific to Lahaina students: for Housing reach out to
“The second part would be actually supporting students in a financial way…” Kauāakeakua said. “[UH Hilo supplying] laptops, phones, stuff like that. Things students need to survive within the college atmosphere. Free meals, free dorms. You know the college is a lucrative business - you know they got money. Ten rooms not gonna do much compared to [what Lahaina lost.]”
The following contacts can be reached for Financial/Emergency Funding specific to Lahaina students: for financial aid assistance reach out to either
“The last part is mental, spiritual, psychological support,” Kauāakeakua said. “Create spaces for students and faculty [from Lahaina] to express their grief and express the pain they felt for those compacted memories that are now just memories.”
The following contacts can be reached for Basic Needs specific to Lahaina students:
For counseling assistance specific to Lahaina students reach out to
“It’s not little to say that all of Maui has been affected by this,” Kauāakeakua said. “All of us from Maui have family that was in Lahaina [or] have visited Lahaina… It’s a lot to hold to realize there’s no more of that. The world is changing so quickly, we need to also take care of our people.”
More information on contacts shared above can be found on the UH Hilo Chancellor’s Blog.