Building a Healthier Future Together

Maui Mental Health Relief

How Kaiser Permanente and local nonprofits are working to help Maui families with keiki take care of their mental health.

Mental health support is a top concern on the island of Maui. Though the Lahaina fire occurred eight months ago, the grief and emotional effects from the disaster have taken their toll on survivors, who are still healing.

Hawai‘i nonprofits are working together to support Maui residents and their keiki, who are experiencing psychological distress, such as stress, anxiety, and depression as a result of the wildfires.

“Our goal is to support every keiki who has been impacted by the fires, which number in the thousands,” says Nicholas Winfrey, president and chief professional officer of Maui United Way. “We understood the mental health aspect is one of the key focal points that the community has to work on, especially as you look into the future with addiction and suicide rates increasing after disasters.”

Maui United Way’s program focuses on filling in the gaps of support for keiki survivors by bringing in licensed practitioners to have conversations with the children at the hotels where they are staying and at after school programs, then getting them the help they need. It is also bringing in additional support for teachers so that they can understand and identify who needs help.

“When we collaborate with partners like Kaiser Permanente, they’re working hand in hand with us,” says Winfrey. Both Kaiser Permanente and Maui United Way look outside of the box to find ways to compound efforts.

The intent is to help as many people as possible. “What we want to do is just empower them,” he says.

Social Emotional Development

Among the Maui nonprofits rising to meet the needs of keiki is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Maui. Its Lahaina clubhouse has been closed since the fire, but the organization has been providing outreach activities to West Maui youth through mobile and pop-up services.

Moving from a park to a hotel lobby and a school, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Maui modified its services to emphasize social emotional development activities, like outdoor recreation, to support physical and mental well-being.

“For many families, these outreach efforts served as the only free, fun, and safe activities available for youth on the West Side, allowing kids to just be kids and giving parents some peace of mind that their keiki were well cared for in a desperate and hectic time,” says Ashley Mason, director of impact and development for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Maui.

Kaiser Permanente supported the West Maui outreach services, specifically the Halona Kai Satellite Club Site at the Hyatt Regency Resort in Kā‘anapali through Thanksgiving and the temporary site currently at Lahaina Intermediate School. The assistance has allowed the Boys & Girls Clubs of Maui to reinstate after-school programming, and create fun events, such as the Keiki Fest.

“The staff, programs, and activities have been my safe place, the one constant in my world of relentless change,” says youth Christopher Leslie of the Lahaina Club.

Mason said the West Maui outreach operations have served 622 youths. It continues to serve West Maui youth every day, after school at Lahaina Intermediate.

Kaiser Permanente staff offered Educational Theatre workshops at Lahaina Intermediate School. From left to right: Billoah Greene, Ruffy Landayan, Joseph Zavala, Johanna Auxais, and Shanna Beauchamp-Hill.

Additionally, Kaiser Permanente brought its national Educational Theatre program to Lahaina Intermediate School students and staff for six workshops. The 40-year-old Educational Theatre program uses theater and social emotional arts, such as drumming, as a tool to help children, teens, and adults to make informed decisions about their health.

The Educational Theatre team gave small workshops with Lahaina Intermediate School teachers and school staff, covering stress awareness, regulation, and how to apply it to the classroom setting. Then they conducted experiential workshops with students and staff together sitting in a circle.

“Each student is given an instrument of some type and the way that we keep interest up is through drum facilitation,” said Shanna Beauchamp-Hill, program supervisor for the Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre. “It’s not a drumming class or anything like that, but we utilize the drum as a nonverbal tool to get students talking about their feelings and learning different regulation activities.”

Beauchamp-Hill said they taught the students how to identify and redirect thought. They also worked with gratitude and had a lot of breathing activities.

“When we’re in the room with our participants, our students, our wonderful teachers, you can really feel the energy,” said Beauchamp-Hill. “You can really hear and see and feel the impact happening.”

Caring for Parents

Parents needing a support system for themselves and their children can turn to Surfing Moms, a national nonprofit locally formed in 2021, that connects moms, or any male or female caregiver with other moms and their children.

The Surfing Moms are paired with another surfing mom and they split a two-hour surf session. One parent paddles out, while the other watches the kids, and then they swap turns. It has an active group on Maui and is waiving all costs for participants for one year.

“What it does is it really creates this community of people who are there all to show up for one another,” said Elizabeth Madin, founder and president of Surfing Moms. “There’s someone there [and the] whole reason they’re there is to help you take care of yourself, and to help you take care of your children.”

Surfing Moms brings two parents, or caregivers, together so that one can surf while the other takes care of the kids on shore. | Photo: courtesy of The Surfing Moms

Kaiser Permanente awarded Surfing Moms a grant to launch its program in 2024 and it will be used to create wraparound services for the mothers and children. “We’ll also be providing one-on-one counseling services through the generous grant from Kaiser Permanente with licensed Hawaii-based counselors,” said Michelle Gorham Dasic, strategy and development leader for Surfing Moms.

Also this year, Surfing Moms is offering two surf therapy cohorts. This provides caregivers some time with a trained surf therapist, who uses the ocean and therapy to support healing.

“Another thing that I think is quite important is having the children see the mothers, or the parents engaging in self-care and looking after themselves and keeping themselves fit and healthy,” said Madin. “That sets a really good example for the children.”

Caring for our community

In 2023, Kaiser Permanente funded more than $3.9 million in grants to Hawaii nonprofit community-based organizations. This includes $2.2 million in grants and employee giving to help aid the Maui disaster relief efforts. Distribution of funding was divided amongst the following key areas:

Tackling Food Insecurity

The many innovative ways nonprofits are making healthy food more accessible.

Photo: courtesy of The Hawaii Foodbank

Hunger is a persistent issue in Hawai‘i that exists in every county. In total, there are 170,970 people facing hunger in the Islands, according to Feeding America, and 54,180 are children.

Kaiser Permanente is addressing food insecurity through a number of grants to nonprofits, who have found innovative and progressive ways to make healthy food more accessible to people.

“Food insecurity is so highly correlated with all these negative health outcomes, like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. We want to be the healthy option,” said Amy Miller, president and CEO of the Hawai‘i Foodbank.

The Hawai‘i Foodbank’s Farm to Food Bank program is a unique way to save and distribute food that would have otherwise been discarded. It pays for the costs associated with harvesting crops in cases where a farmer doesn’t feel it makes economic sense to take it to the retail market.

“We have a grant through the USDA for the Farm to Food Bank program and it requires a 100% match,” said Miller. “I think this is the third year in a row Kaiser Permanente has come in with a 100% match. It really helps to have a partner in the community like Kaiser Permanente that we can really count on.”

Last year, through all of its programs, the Hawai‘i Foodbank distributed 19.5 million pounds of food. “No matter what your economic status is, everyone should have access to safe and healthy food,” said Miller.

Free Maui Health Care Plan

Roots Reborn partnered with the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study, which examined the impact of wildfire toxins on people, to ensure minority groups were represented in the assessment. | Photo: courtesy of Roots Reborn Lahaina

The Hawai‘i Health Access Program (HHAP), a nocost health care plan completely underwritten by Kaiser Permanente, was introduced in late 2023 to help Maui residents who were unable to get any other health coverage.

“HHAP members pay no monthly premium or out-of-pocket costs for most covered services at Kaiser Permanente facilities,” says Ailene Schwartzlow, medical social worker for Kaiser Permanente. “The program was helpful to our undocumented members in our community.”

Roots Reborn Lahaina, a Mauibased community hub for immigrants impacted by the fires, found a high success rate for all of its applications to the program, and was able to enroll 127 individuals. “It’s an incredible program and we knew that the folks that we serve, specifically our undocumented community, would be eligible,” says Veronica Mendoza Jachowski, co-founder and executive director for Roots Reborn Lahaina.

“A lot of those folks that got health insurance, they were getting health coverage for the first time,” Jachowski says. “The impact that it’s having and will have, we can’t even begin to quantify.”

Long-Term Support

The Maui Hub also works with local farmers through its online marketplace. The nonprofit organization gives farmers and ranchers a place to sell products directly to local people in hopes that it will help them increase food production.

“The other part of the mission is to make sure that the food produced and sold through Maui Hub is not just for the wealthy, that it’s accessible to all Maui residents, including our most vulnerable,” says Autumn Ness, president of Maui Hub.

Following the Maui fires, Maui Hub rolled out a Long-Term Fire Relief Nutrition Program supported from the start by Kaiser Permanente. It gives Lahaina families credits every month to use in the online store, where they can shop for locally grown fresh produce and local meats.

“That support lasts for a year so they have the confidence to know that they can be fed with good food and it’s, mentally, really amazing to know that your community has got you,” says Ness.

The nonprofit organization Feed the Hunger Fund provides loans to smaller, often overlooked small food entrepreneurs in the Islands. Last year, it loaned $2.5 million to Hawai‘i entrepreneurs. Feed the Hunger Fund was also able to offer grants to these small businesses, using funds provided by Kaiser Permanente.

“Our loans are really meant to go to low-income small businesses who are left out of the financial markets, and they don’t have access to the capital to either start businesses, or to grow their businesses, and they don’t necessarily have the technical assistance, or someone they can count on to run their business plans by,” says Patti Chang, CEO of Feed the Hunger Fund.

“That’s what I think is the secret sauce of our organization,” she adds. “We’re there for these businesses pre-loan, even before we make a loan, and post-loan, which can be up to five years.”

In response to the Maui fires, Feed the Hunger Fund created a new campaign called the Maui Build Back Stronger Small Business Grant Program, which sent support to 47 small businesses – and it will soon be helping more. “If the time comes for some of them to decide that they want to start again, or that they want to start in a different manner, they know that we’re there for them,” says Chang.

Targeting Kūpuna

The King Lunalilo Trust utilizes a community association to identify kūpuna who are food insecure on the West Side of O‘ahu, from Kapolei to Mākaha. Beneficiaries are not required to apply to receive help.

“We have worked with the Hawaiian Homestead Associations to identify kūpuna,” says Keolamaikalani Dean, CEO of the King Lunalilo Trust. “The requirements are simply that the community identifies that the kupuna needs hot meals.”

The local-style meals are at no cost, and are delivered by volunteers. Since the program began in August 2023, it has delivered 11,000 meals for 265 kupuna.

“Kaiser Permanente awarded us $75,000 to provide hot meals delivered to kūpuna experiencing food insecurity,” says Dean. “Our kūpuna meal delivery program is only the first step in our plans to serve more kūpuna on the West Side of O‘ahu.”