To understand Lāhainā today, it helps to remember what existed here before much of the landscape we recognize now. Before Front Street. Before Canal Street. Before plantation water systems transformed West Maui. There was wai. Water descended from the uplands. Springs emerged across the lowlands. Streams, wetlands, loʻi, loko, and nearshore waters formed interconnected systems […]
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Support Local Hawaii may look like a place to discover local organizations, events, projects, resources, stories, and ways to help. Underneath it, something much larger has been taking shape. We think of it as a Stewardship Operating System. Not an operating system in the traditional technology sense. A human one. A framework designed to help […]
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Prepare before an emergency. Build the supplies, plans and connections your household may need. Emergencies rarely give us the time we wish we had. A wildfire can require you to leave quickly. A hurricane can disrupt electricity, water, transportation and supplies. Flooding, earthquakes, tsunami, severe weather and other emergencies can isolate communities or make familiar […]
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Stay connected when communications fail. During an emergency, electricity, cellular service, internet access, and familiar sources of information may become unreliable or unavailable. The goal is not to depend on one system. Prepare several ways to receive information, several ways to communicate, and a simple plan your household can follow without needing the internet. In […]
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From 24 community distribution points and tens of thousands of meals to emergency cash assistance, medical referrals, pet support and neighbors clearing roads together, the response to Lala is showing what Emergency Stewardship looks like when Hawaiʻi acts as one. When disaster strikes Hawaiʻi, the story is never only about the storm. It is also […]
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Hawaiʻi is facing an unusually active and potentially consequential stretch of tropical weather. Hurricane Lowell is rapidly strengthening southeast of Hawaiʻi and is forecast to become a major hurricane on Wednesday. Farther east, powerful Hurricane Karina continues moving westward across the Pacific. Beyond Karina, Tropical Storm Marie is another reminder of just how active the […]
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ʻIewe Hānau o ka ʻĀina is a community-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting the cultural practices, natural resources, and wahi pana of Kaʻū.
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Emergency Stewardship is a permanent part of the Support Local Hawaii ecosystem, connecting communities, trusted information, organizations, resources, and ways to help through a continuous cycle of readiness, activation, response, and recovery.
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Support Local Hawaii officially launches as Hawaiʻi communities recover from severe weather, prolonged outages, and disruption—and a new permanent Emergency Stewardship capability emerges from the experience. Support Local Hawaii is officially live. After months of rebuilding, organizing, listening, designing, and preparing the stewardship ecosystem for its public launch, we reached the date we had been […]
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Long before it became a popular tourist destination, Lahaina was known as the “Venice of the Pacific,” a town surrounded by vibrant canals, rich wetlands, and thriving fishponds. The intricate network of waterways, fed by the surrounding streams, sustained the ecosystem and supported the livelihoods of the Native Hawaiian people. Lahaina was not only a […]
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