 It's the two o'clock block on a Wednesday at Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Community Matters, and we're talking to Diane Chadwick, and she is with the Hawaii Community Foundation. She joins us by telephone from the Big Island, from Hilo, I think, yeah? Welcome to the show, Diane. Oh, I'm actually in Waimea. Okay, Waimea, okay, that's even better, yeah. So we're here to talk about the volcano, the Volcano Victims Relief Fund, and you've been administering that fund for a year now, yeah? Since the volcano had its eruption just about a year ago in May of 2018. So we are very interested in talking to you about the fund and how it operates. First, can you tell us, you're the director of emergency relief. What is your title at HCF? No, I'm actually the director of Community Philanthropy on Hawaii Island. Ah, okay. And I'm the chief leader of our staff on this island. Okay, and you operate out of Waimea in the Big Island? I do, we have two offices on Hawaii Island, one in Waimea and one in Hilo. We also have offices on Maui, Hawaii, and of course our main office in Honolulu. They're everywhere, the community fund is everywhere. So this has really been a, go ahead. Go ahead. The joys of remote connection. So the community fund is everywhere and the community fund really jumped into the eruption and all the damage and dislocation that that involved and created a special fund just for the Big Island, just for the eruption. And you were administering that, that's the Hawaii Island Volcano Recovery Fund. I hope you don't have too much business going forward. Anyway, can you describe what happened and how the Hawaii Community Foundation got involved and how you got involved in this effort? Well, it actually, it all happened so quickly on Friday, May 4th. I was actually at a meeting in Kona and we felt that 6.9 magnitude earthquake just, you know, was very strong earthquake and we heard on the news that homes were already being destroyed by Lava and Lelani Estates and people were being evacuated. That was Friday. On Sunday afternoon, I received a phone call for a Brandy Manino of post-services. They had already pulled together a meeting of nonprofits and government agencies to respond to the evacuees and they called Hawaii Community Foundation, they called me to see if we could set up a fund to help with the response effort. So what was it, what? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, the next day, on Monday, I went to a meeting in Pahilo and then heard what was beginning to be organized. I went back and contacted several of our donors who immediately agreed to start the fund. So I wanted to thank those donors, Eric Anderson, Roger Beck, Darian and Darian G, Kate Bell, Tom Blackburn and an anonymous donor from Jack's Fund. They all were willing to put money for starting up the fund. Then, and that happened on that same day on Monday, then our team in Honolulu got the word out that the fund had been established and we began to receive contributions from all over the world. And as we said, we did raise a million dollars from over 600 different individual businesses, classrooms, clubs and we wanna say Pahilo to every donor for supporting this effort. How do you do that? How do you raise money from all over the world? I mean, I was gonna say that the Hawaii Community Foundation can raise money like nobody else in the state because you have so much history with so many funders. And certainly this was natural for you to do this. But how do you do that? How do you, when you step out the door in the morning, how do you raise a million dollars? Well, you know, it was really due to the effort of our communications team and the news, they went on the news and they said we have a fund available and it was in, you know, newspapers and that news, the broadcasting of that volcano was all over, it went everywhere. People were so interested. And we are a credible organization that people feel comfortable giving to. They can be sure that their contributions will be used wisely and carefully. And they did, they just started giving. Okay, so now you have, you've raised a million dollars for a very notable event and a compelling need. And so now people are being dislocated, they're in trouble, you know, they may not have resources to get along outside their homes which have been destroyed and the like. How do you organize the effort to help them? Well, you know, we did not actually organize the response effort. That was very much the result of the community itself. So as I say, Brandi Muneo from Hope Services called me, she had gotten together with Sharon Carrosa from the County Office on Housing, Catholic Charities was there, a number of organizations, Neighborhood Place of Cuna, they were already meeting and organizing. They had actually done this previously when the Hurricane Ibel hit the Cuna area. So they were all used to working together in disaster response. They started, and they held meetings, I went to the first meeting Monday morning, there were meetings every week and more and more people kept coming to the meetings from all kinds of businesses and churches and organizations that wanted to help. And so I attended those meetings and I listened to hear what was being done and what were the needs. And what I learned from that was that all of those organizations were really overextended. They had small staff in a place like Kilo, you only have a few people and they were getting hundreds of requests for help. And so we realized that what we needed to do was really help those organizations to have the staffing that they needed so that they could respond and do their work to distribute food and household goods. They helped people find new living arrangements. They provided counseling and financial assistance. So our job was really to listen to the community and hear what was needed and respond in a way that would help them to do their work. So you had to make decisions about what you heard and how to allocate the funding you received. So how do you do that? Was that just a judgment call? Is that a committee? How do you do that? Well, actually it was talking with the community, asking them what they thought would be the most helpful. But we also had, I had strong support from our whole staff in Honolulu. We had actually a regular call in with our executive leadership team. And so everybody joined in on the conversation to help make that decision about where was the best. So many people were giving goods. We're giving food, clothing, household supplies. We didn't feel like we needed to be paying for those kinds of items. And we really are, we're really set up to support the nonprofit sector in many ways. So it really made sense for us to help those organizations to do the work that they do. Now you divided up your grants to the nonprofits in three categories. Response, recovery and rebuilding. Can you describe the differences and the similarities between those three areas of grant? Yes, and we really learned about this way of responding to disasters from other community foundations who have responded to disasters and from experts from FEMA and Hy-Hima. There were so many disaster experts that came to Hilo and helped us to understand how recovery takes place in a community. So the rapid relief and response phase is really for the immediate need. It provides shelter, food, mental health support for urgent needs for the people who are displaced. So we gave about $179,000 to eight organizations quickly as possible. Our very first grant was made to the Kuna Baptist Church who arranged for discounted laundry services at a laundromat in Pahola. And they gave out vouchers to people who, people had to leave their homes with just their clothes on their back and they had nowhere to clean their clothing at. So the church organized this laundry voucher system and they specifically would help to support it. So that was one of our first grants. And another early grant in this response phase was to the food basket. They received quadruple the amount of food and supplies that they usually do and they didn't have enough pants to handle that. So they needed extra people in the warehouse to package it up and an additional driver to get the supplies out into the community. And so that's the kind of thing that we supported with for them to be able to have the staff in to do that work. The second phase is the recovery phase. So with a volcanic eruption that went on for months, it wasn't like the disaster happened, it was over in a day, it kept happening. But as people began to realize that they were gonna be in the shelters for a long time, some of those families were trying to find other living arrangements. And so the recovery and stabilization phase is where we actually helped to provide legal aid services. There was a lot of legal advice that was given regarding insurance claims, that had a tax for humanity began to, we provided funding for them to have two staff positions to begin to work with families and figure out about repairing and rebuilding homes if they were needed. We also gave to Hawaiian community assets, they helped to provide financial counseling and loans for people who were trying to sort out their housing needs. And in some cases having to replace cars and furniture and things like that. Then the third phase is rebuilding. This is after, this is a longer term phase where the community is trying to rebuild itself. Given the loss of over 700 homes, we were looking at supporting some long term affordable housing options. And in this phase we've given funding to Hawaii Alliance for Community Based Economic Development. They were working together with the county who wanted to explore the option of having a affordable housing land trust set up to try and help to provide some of the housing options. We also gave a grant to the Makuhu Farmers Association. They've had an event called Activate Kuna which worked with, which really was helping to get the community back on its feet and engage the youth in the business community in O'Hola. You think the community is back? I mean, to what degree have you staved off, was social and community disaster? And to what degree has the community recovered over the past year? Well, there are a lot of people who have been able to return to homes or are able to find new housing. But there are still many people who are not able to. They're on incomes where they can't afford housing outside of that Kuna area. Their homes were completely destroyed and they don't have any other means of building. In some cases, people had taken all of their savings or whatever had built a house and that was all that they had. And when it was destroyed, they had nothing left. So there are still people in that situation and an organization that's like Habitat for Humanity, Hawaii Island are, and Hawaiian community assets, Catholic Charity, Salvation Army, they're all working to try and still help people who are those last people that really have no other options. Well, you know, hundreds of people lost their homes or other critical property like cars. And it seems to me that this is sort of a good example of the need and the success of having HCF agents, executives, management people on all the islands because you had to deal with other organizations on the Big Island. You had to deal with really the entire community on the Big Island and your knowledge of them, your relationships with them, undoubtedly helped you in making the right choices and making the most efficient use of the money. Am I right about that? Oh yes, and that's why Hawaii Community Foundation has offices on the neighbor islands. We really feel that it's important to know the communities and to be a part of them so that when we're working in the community, we can actually, we have a lot of relationships and we draw, we really work together with our donors and with the business, government, and nonprofit sector to come up with solutions. Yeah, it strikes me that you had to be working with other nonprofits, other funding organizations that were like-minded and trying to help. And so it was important that you knew who they were so as not to duplicate efforts and coordinate things. And we'll talk more about who was involved, but I would imagine that your relationships with these other organizations, including religious and other charitable organizations, is very helpful and it made the whole effort a collaborative, am I right? Yes, indeed. And I think the other thing is that because we know those organizations, it was easy to turn around and give them a grant very quickly. We knew that we knew they were credible, we knew they were doing the work. We were on the ground, we could see that they were working with people. So that knowledge helped us to be able to distribute the money very quickly. Yeah. I'm gonna take a short break, Diane. I'm gonna take a one minute break and we'll come back and at that time we can show some of the photographs that you have of the efforts on the ground. This is Community Matters, I'm Jay Fidel. It's Diane Chadwick of HCF on the Big Island. We're talking about the Volcano Eruption Relief Fund. We'll be right back after this break. Aloha. I'm Dayla Nyonegira, a host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thank you so much. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaii Anna all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Okay, we're back. We're alive. This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedelen on the phone from the Big Island is Diane Chadwick of HCF who has been managing a recovery fund for the losses resulting from last year's some eruption in the Big Island. So we have some photos. Let me describe them to you, Diane. And you can give us the background of the photos. The first photo is a photo of some fellas putting food, and there's a truck next to it says food basket, they're putting some food in a truck. What does that signify? What's happening in that photo? Right, I mentioned earlier that the food basket immediately started to have contributions from just everywhere. They had containers that were being shipped in from other islands, from other states. They had so many supplies that they had to sort through and then truck out to the Puna community. So that's what that picture is showing that one of the drivers, I believe, in the warehouse. Okay, the next one, the next photograph we're gonna show you is a lot of people in a room. Oh, it looks like dozens of people are on a huge big table in a, looks like a government room to me, but it's a really big conference room and they're all intent on discussing things and I'm sure you are at that table, aren't you? Yes, this was a government room. We were all meeting at the Office of Housing and that group kept growing and growing. That was one of the things that astounded me the most is how many people came forward and met week after week, sharing what they were doing and what was needed and what was happening. It was eventually that group and that was made up of non-profits, business people, the government agencies. There was a faith fully of churches, a number of, a lot of churches came to the table and eventually with the advice of FEMA, that group formalized and became known as Hawaii Island Disaster Response and Recovery Team. The acronym is HIJART. Gee, okay, and that's very important because then that group might be around or will be around, presumably the next time anything like this happens. So you learn a lot about how to organize a group like this and make it work and furthermore, it seems to me that you as HCF really have to be there and you have to see the dynamic of it and you have to be able to communicate with the individuals who are at the table. You couldn't function without being in touch with all of them so this is a very good social experience but it's also a learning experience for the future. Am I right? Oh yes, this group has already been planning for how they will mobilize again more quickly or just as quickly and more efficiently for the next disaster. Yeah, okay, let's go to the next photo. Okay, this is a person, I don't think it's you but it's a person, young person, with two dogs, a big dog and maybe a smaller dog and it looks like this person is in temporary housing. This is part of your effort to provide housing. Am I right? Well, this is actually a photo taken at the Pahoa Shelter. So the Pahoa Shelter, it had hundreds of people and this was a gym at the Pahoa Park and so the gymnasium itself could not hold all of the people who needed shelter and there were camps set up all around the shelter and that is one of the people who was staying at the camp and there was animals. There was animals all over the place. I remember seeing a duck and some other kind, there was just a lot of different people there with their pets and waiting for the to stop. So they could go back to their home. Yeah, your pets are very important to you in times of need and it's very tragic if you lose them or somehow they're injured by what has happened so saving the pets is very important to saving the family. Let's look at the next picture. Okay, now here it looks like some tents, looks like a tent of maybe 15 by 15 by six or eight feet and it looks like a small house. What is this? And it's in a parking lot, number of them in a parking lot. What is that? Yeah, that's the Pahoa Shelter. So there were tents all around in the parking lot and then all the, wait, the playing fields all around outside of the gymnasium. Okay, let's go to the next and last photo we have and this is an emotional scene of a man and a woman in the red shirts, if you recall, and they're under a shelter in a parking lot and they're obviously concerned and passionate about something, what is it? This is actually members of the Puna Baptist Church. A lot of church members help families to evacuate from their homes. A lot of churches came together and took trucks out there to help people move. They also provided counseling and prayer or for families that were in the shelters. This particular photo is of the Puna Baptist Church members who were distributing laundry vouchers so that people could take those vouchers to the laundromat down the street and wash their clothing and Grant was made to the church to help pay for those vouchers. It's a small thing, but you really feel a lot better in clean clothes. Well, I have to say that this is quite an effort and it strikes me that as far as the Big Island is concerned, what happened in Puna, what happened with this volcanic eruption and all the lava that flowed through residential communities is unprecedented. I mean, in all of history that we know about, but I also suggest that this is this effort that you were undertaking on behalf of HCF and its various granting individuals and agencies. Also unprecedented, an experience you never had before, am I right? Oh yeah, it was, I just had to jump in and figure out what was going on really quickly. Yeah, one of the things I meant to ask you about was the Streak STR-EAK database and how it played in identifying what, well, either side of the equation, the grand tours or the beneficiaries. What does Streak stand for? What is it? Well, you know, I don't know what it stands for, but it's actually a database that will keep track of, it was used to track the request for assistance. So the organizations, the service organization, who responded immediately, they had worked together for the Hurricane Del response and they knew that people who were in distress from the disaster didn't need to be trying to find the social service agencies who could help them. And so the social service agencies actually set up a resource center at the Fahola Shelter and people from Catholic Charities, from Child and Family Service, from Hope Services, from the Food Basket, all these different organizations came to the resource center and they agreed to all work together to have one central intake of requests for assistance. So the Streak database was used, people would fill out a simple form saying what they needed help with. Did they need help with housing? Did they need financial assistance? Did they need clothing? Did they, and actually, did they want to leave the island? And so all of these requests were then entered into the central database and then they were referred out to the appropriate organization. So for example, Child and Family Services was helping people to get airfares to fly if they had family outside of Hawaii and they just wanted to leave the area. They could be connected to Child and Family Service and they would Child and Family Service would then call them up and help them to resolve that issue. Or if they needed housing support, Hope Services would call them and help them to figure out how to find alternative housing arrangements. So the centralized database was really important so that people, you know, the evacuees didn't have to go looking for the help and they didn't have to work with a lot of different agencies. The agencies were directly connected to them. The other thing that the Streak database was that the county didn't, you know, they were actually busy working on getting people out of the area. They were not directly involved with the service that was being given to people. So when it came time to be able to tell the federal government the extent of how many people were being impacted, this database was very helpful to tell them that there were over 1,200 requests for help and they were able to use those numbers as they were letting emergency agencies know of the extent of the disaster effect. What strikes me is that you're describing a picture where, you know, through others and people you're collaborating with, you are dealing with individual problems, individual situations and you're helping individuals, which is, that's remarkable and I think it's made possible by something like the Streak database. And I wonder how all of that, you know that, you would not expect, for example, state government or federal government to deal on such an individual level that way. And I wonder what their role was while you were working on, you know, on your volcano relief fund. What FEMA was doing and what state government was doing, you know, to deal with this, you know, this volcanic eruption? Well, in the beginning, the state and federal, FEMA and Hy-EMA, they came over to Hilo right away. They were at the table almost from day one and FEMA, I believe, has to wait for a certain period of time that has to be declared and then they have a lot of, you know, procedures. So it was weeks before FEMA was able to actually come in. They were there and they were giving advice, very good advice, but they were not able to open up their resource center to access their, you know, the funds from FEMA a number of weeks. So when they did finally were able to open the resource center and begin to process applications for, you know, FEMA help relief, then the local resource center was able to close down. But FEMA did work closely with the local organizations and a lot of the local volunteers were there at the FEMA resource center and helped to guide the people who needed help around the resource center and connect them into the FEMA dollars. Well, let me go on to the last thing because we're almost out of time. And, you know, one of them is, you know, you raise a million dollars over time and that is something. And then you made a lot of grants to a lot of people and situations to try to, you know, improve life for them in the stress of all this. Are you done? Have you spent it all? If you're not done, when will the job be done? And also, are you still taking requests for grants? Are you still taking money for the fund? What's the status right now, Diane? Well, right now we have spent out $900,000 of the money that was raised. We do have some money left. We are still talking with organizations that are looking at that long-term recovery. We just recently made grants for the affordable land trust and for more work to be done by the Hawaiian community assets. Hawaiian community assets is continuing to provide financial counseling and loans. There's a group called the Kilauea Hui, which is made up of Salvation Army Catholic Charities, let's see, Hawaiian community assets, Habitat for Humanity. They actually are still getting together and reviewing individual cases and pooling the resources that they have gotten from us and other sources to continue to try and help people with their housing situation. So there is still work going on. We are trying to wrap up the fund, hopefully over the next month or two. We will send it out. We are not, we're not looking for applications. There was not an application process for this, but we are keeping our ears open to hear what else is needed for that last bit of money. We are not looking for additional contributions to the fund. My suggestion, our suggestion is that if people want to help to give it directly to those organizations that are doing the work. So as I mentioned, Habitat for Humanity Catholic Charities, Hawaiian community assets, all of those folks who are still serving people, they're still serving people services. So we say, and we have a list on our website of all of the grantees at hawaiyecommunityfoundation.org slash Volcano Recovery. If you look at that list, we suggest that you connect up with those organizations directly and contribute to them. Well, Diane Chadwick, Hawaii Community Foundation on the Big Island managed this huge effort over the past year. Good for you, Diane. Thank you for joining us on the show and talking about it. We really appreciate it on both levels, on your efforts and on your discussion with us today. Well, thank you very much for inviting me to speak about this, this is important. It was really a huge community effort. We learned a lot from it, and we really hope that everybody will be resettled and back to their lives after this disaster. This is part of sustainability in Hawaii, part of resilience in Hawaii, and you are definitely part of it. Thank you so much, Diane. Thank you very much, Jay. Aloha. Aloha.