While helping families recover from Hurricane Lala, Kimberly “Aulani” Fanene spent last Thursday preparing her community resilience hub on the edge of Punaluu for the potential effects of Tropical Storm Moke, protecting food supplies and coordinating meal deliveries.

Read more Another strong outing by Blake Snell sends Dodgers to sweep of Pirates

Help arrived from across Oahu. Sharmaine “Boomie” Arial, who ran a relief hub in Waialua after the Kona-low storms in March, delivered 400 hot meals, while Laura Thielen of Partners in Care came with a generator for a child whose breathing depends on electrically powered medical equipment.

For Fanene, whose family of seven was displaced by the Kona-low floods before rain from Hurricane Lala inundated the lower level of their new home, the deliveries reflected a familiar pattern in Hawaii: neighbors helping neighbors.

What began as a Windward Oahu relief effort known as Farm Kine Tings has grown into a multi-­island network. Fanene now sends meals to West Oahu, helps move supplies to Molokai and coordinates with partners serving isolated Hawaii Island communities. Still recovering from disaster impacts herself and raising children coping with storm-related trauma, she has helped coordinate distribution of as many as 1,800 meals a day with support from the nonprofit World Central Kitchen.

Fanene’s operation is part of a broader network of residents, nonprofits, churches and grassroots groups that has become a critical part of Hawaii’s disaster response, often providing food, transportation, shelter, medical equipment and wellness checks long before state or federal assistance arrives.

From the 2018 Kauai floods and Lower Puna eruption on Big Island, to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 Maui wildfires and this year’s run of destructive storms, communities across the islands have repeatedly stepped up to identify needs, mobilize resources and care for vulnerable residents.

Increasingly, those networks extend beyond individual communities, creating an island-to-island system of support that activates before, during and after disasters. As Hurricane Lala approached last week and Tropical Storm Moke threatened, many community organizations were already using those networks to identify vulnerable residents, position supplies and prepare response hubs ahead of the storms.

“Aloha is not a feeling, it’s an action and it’s a muscle,” said Terry George, president and CEO of the Hawai’i Community Foundation. “When people in our community see severe impact, they feel it in their na‘au, in their hearts, and they don’t ask permission, they just go help. That is the secret sauce of the way Hawaii takes care of each other during disasters.”

George said HCF is directing resources through its Stronger Hawai‘i Fund created in March to respond to the Kona-low events and strengthen community resilience. The fund’s goal is to raise $10 million. It currently has about $1.7 million available in addition to roughly $1 million across four county-specific recovery funds.

HCF has already distributed $732,000 to 12 organizations across three islands assisting communities impacted by Hurricane Lala, including Vibrant Hawai‘i and the Salvation Army Hilo Temple Corps. The funding supports food and water distribution, wellness checks, emergency communications, shelter assistance and other urgent needs.

The foundation also has distributed $1.5 million in response to the March floods and plans to double its overall 2026 disaster funding.

“We fear we’ve got more storms coming,” George said. “We will continue to support community-based organizations because they are often the first to step up when disaster strikes.

Vibrant Hawai‘i CEO Janice Ikeda said in a statement the response has been “incredibly coordinated” because hyper-localized resilience hubs have led recovery efforts while government and nonprofit partners have stepped back to affirm their leadership and decision-making.

As federal assistance remains weeks or months away, residents are turning to community organizations to help meet immediate needs. Among them is Debra Gorai, 74, who visited Farm Kine Tings last week after Hurricane Lala left her Kahana Bay neighborhood without power and spoiled hundreds of dollars worth of food.

Gorai found Fanene’s hub through Facebook and has received gift cards, debris-removal help and hot meals from other local groups. Having lived through Hurricane Iniki, she said community support has always been central to recovery.

“If not for the community, I don’t know how we would make it,” Gorai said. “I have limited resources, but if I hear somebody needs something, I give what I can, too.”

Hawaii values at work

Kuhio Lewis, CEO of the Hawaiian Council, said Hawaii’s community-first disaster response model is both a practical necessity and an expression of Native Hawaiian values.

“Government has the resources, they have the money, they have the infrastructure to support,” he said. “We can’t build roads, but we can fill the pukas.”

Lewis said community relationships become especially important before and immediately after disasters, when organizations can use trusted local networks to identify vulnerable residents, move resources into communities and respond more quickly than government agencies. For instance, he said the Hawaiian Council paid to pump out cesspools before the Kona lows and Hurricane Lala.

Read more Moke tracks west as Tropical Storm Iselle strengthens in Eastern Pacific

Lewis said the council raised more than $30 million following the Maui wildfires, rented properties for displaced residents and developed a program to help offset housing costs for families sheltering friends and relatives.

More recently, the organization raised $1 million through its Aloha for Action Concert to support communities impacted by the Kona lows and is working with Hawaii Island Mayor Kimo Alameda on a major fundraiser.

Housing is also emerging as a major concern on Hawaii Island, Lewis said, along with the cultural and spiritual impacts of Hurricane Lala, which unearthed caskets, headstones and iwi kupuna at Naalehu Cemetery.

“I know one family that has several generations buried in that cemetery,” he said. “Recovery isn’t just physical, it’s spiritual, too.”

He said disaster response now accounts for about a quarter of the council’s capacity. The work is driven in part by his own experience receiving help when he needed it most.

“I got out of the rut that I was in because people were willing to help me,” Lewis said of his time as a 17-year-old single parent on welfare.

‘Here for each other’

The value of community networks became clearer to Lahaina resident Shayne Kahahane in the aftermath of the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire that claimed the life of his sister, Donna Gomes. He remembers Molokai residents delivering supplies by boat when Lahaina survivors were isolated from the rest of Maui, “starving” and living in parks with only the clothes on their backs while the government response lagged in those first few days.

He said Maui later helped Molokai after the Kona-low storms, and he sees that same reciprocity at work as Maui, Molokai, Kauai and Oahu residents mobilize to help Big Island recover from Hurricane Lala.

“It’s just moving to know that people are helping people they’ve never met,” Kahahane said. “It really says something about community.”

Megan Wong of the Kauai Resilience Team said Kauai’s approach to Hurricane Lala relief efforts is shaped by lessons learned during the Garden Isle’s devastating 2018 floods.

“During the flooding on Kauai, we learned very quickly that we couldn’t sit around and wait for FEMA, Red Cross or government agencies to meet the immediate needs,” she said. “People showed up with their hands, equipment, food, supplies and resources and simply asked, ‘What do you need?’”

Wong said effective disaster response depends on trusted local leadership, clear communication and government support that complements rather than replaces community-led efforts.

“Government absolutely has a role, particularly in long-term recovery and providing resources communities can’t access on their own,” she said. “But government doesn’t always need to lead. Sometimes its most effective role is supporting the systems the community has already created.”

As Kauai organizes support for Hawaii island, those lessons are being put into practice through partnerships with Ka Lahui Hawai‘i and Na Wahine Ko‘i to identify needs and move resources where they are most needed.

For Kahahane, the community-first stories emerging from Hurricane Lala illustrate a pattern that repeats across the islands whenever disaster strikes.

“There’s community; we know we’re here for each other,” he said. “We know that we aren’t alone.”

Wong said Kauai’s mobilization also reflects the gratitude many residents still feel toward those who helped their island during the 2018 floods.

“We remember the people who showed up for Kauai when we needed them,” Wong said. “Now another island needs help, and it’s our turn to show up for them. That’s how Hawaii works. Community takes care of community.”

Read more Warriors defense preparing to take on Stanford’s experienced O-line