Volunteer host site helping to bring hope to Maui following wildfires
Project is a joint effort between Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the United Church of Christ
LOUISVILLE — More than two years after wildfires devastated Maui, killing more than 100 people, a host site for disaster volunteers has formally opened at Po’okela Church, one of the oldest churches in Hawaii.
The host site — created to give volunteers a place to stay while helping the island to recover — was formally commissioned in an afternoon service with key partners in the project in February.
“It was such a great event,” said the Rev. Dr. Kimberly Fong, the church’s pastor. “The worship service was awesome and powerful.”
The service also was an outward sign of the unity between Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the United Church of Christ, two entities that came together to create the volunteer host site and who were joined by a number of community groups at the commissioning service.
“Today is a great day of celebration,” said the Rev. Kathy Lee-Cornell, PDA’s national disaster associate, who spoke during a morning service that preceded the commissioning. “We are here from north and south and east and west to be gathered here at Po’okela Church to celebrate you as a volunteer host site, not only with the Presbyterians but also with the United Church of Christ.”
The display of ecumenical collaboration was empowering and eye-opening as partners and the community came together with compassion and love, Fong said. “Everybody came and witnessed what’s going on” — the church serving as a role model of unity.
The host site, which received its first guests in November, has been carved out of office and sanctuary space now outfitted with comfortable chair beds at Po’okela, which is a UCC Church with a Presbyterian pastor. Volunteers will assist community recovery by donating their time to efforts by groups, such as the Kula Community Watershed Alliance, formed by locals after the 2023 wildfires to stabilize, protect, restore and maintain the watershed, and another disaster recovery organization, Mālama Kula.
In order to assist these groups, “you don’t need any special skills,” Fong said, and “they still need a lot of volunteers” since it’s going to be “a long recovery.”
The host site is the latest chapter for Po’okela, which is known for its generosity, having supported residents in various ways since the wildfires destroyed the town of Lahaina, and ravaged land and property in the Upcountry, where Po’okela is located. Along with operating a thrift store, Po’okela distributed about $100,000 in emergency funds to meet residents’ needs, such as paying for mortgages and rent, with the help of PC(USA), Fong said.
The Rev. Heidi Worthen Gamble, mission catalyst for the Presbytery of the Pacific, said: “It is a joy to see how this small church continues to show up in big ways for its community under the excellent leadership of Rev. Dr. Fong, and a testimony to what can happen when mid-council governing bodies and PDA come alongside a church with support and resources.”
The collaboration is thought to be the first formal instance of the PC(USA) and UCC working together to develop a host site, said UCC’s Katie Howe, minister for disaster response and recovery.
In the past, “we could send UCC groups to Presbyterian sites, and Presbyterians could send Presbyterian groups to UCC sites, but this is the first intentionally combined site,” said Howe, who spoke during the commissioning service and brought along co-branded T-shirts.
“We got them made here locally to really support the local economy,” she said.
The Rev. Kelly Burd, minister for volunteer engagement for UCC, said the commissioning service felt like a celebration — not just for the church, but for the community.
“There was just a lot of pride,” Burd said. “You can see it's a very caring community.”
Speaking during the commissioning service, Howe likened Po’okela to the “helpers” that children’s television icon Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian, used to speak of.
“We are here to celebrate the helpers,” Howe said. “You are the helpers in your community, and it's an important role to help your community recover. In the early days of the disaster, Po’okela Church leaned into Jesus' commandment of loving your neighbors by engaging in a variety of activities. You stepped up to help your community with whatever needed to be done … and although Pastor Kimberly was leading this effort, she was supported by all of you, including this church, Presbytery of the Pacific, the Hawai'i Conference, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, my office at the national United Church of Christ, and many of you that are gathered here today.”
PDA has 13 host sites, but the one at Po’okela is unique, said the Rev. Nell Herring, PDA associate for volunteer ministries.
“Typically, when volunteers come and stay at a PDA host site, they're doing reconstruction work on homes,” Herring said. “In this particular case … we're partnering with an organization that's going to help with land restoration work, so our volunteers are going to be replanting native vegetation to help restore the island's natural plant resources to help do some ecological reconstruction, if you will, of the island, which is a little different than what we would typically do.”
John Toillion, PDA’s representative to Hawaii Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), was part of a small group from Mililani Presbyterian Church in Oʻahu that used the host site last year, serving as a test group for Po’okela.
“From the time we arrived, they were welcoming us,” Toillion said. “They had a dinner already set up … so we had a chance to meet a number of the members from the congregation, and they were so excited” and offered their appreciation as well as a bounty of food.
The Mililani group spent most of their volunteer hours assisting the Kula Community Watershed Alliance. "Our primary job for the week was to install an irrigation system” for the growing of plants for an alliance project, he said. The volunteers also visited Lahaina for a day to help with a rebuilding project by Habitat for Humanity.
Volunteers “can only do so much as a small group,” he said, but “I found this (trip) to be very personally rewarding, because I could focus on it and know that something good was going to come from this.” Though there are many negatives in the world, “this gives an opportunity to have a lot of positives.”
Because Hawai'i can be so expensive, being able to use the host site will help volunteers to save money and also to make connections, organizers said.
It’s important to have relationships “where they're learning about the culture” as well as the wildfires, said Burd, who watched at least three documentaries before visiting Po’okela.
“Part of my role going forward will be helping with resources” to educate incoming groups, she said. “It's going to be a win, win. They'll really go away with a sense of the beauty of the land and the people of faith that they're working with that are hosting them.”
PDA has several other host sites. For general questions about volunteering, contact the PDA Call Center at [email protected] or 866-732-6121.
Watch the commissioning service here.
Watch a sermon by the Rev. Kathy Lee-Cornell of PDA here.
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