Our church has an amazing opportunity to partner with a wonderful community in Wai‘anae called Pu‘uhonua O Wai‘anae these next few months (and hopefully longer)!

Puʻuhonua O Waiʻanae is a village of 250 people living unhoused on the leeward side of Oʻahu. A majority of residents are Native Hawaiians. It is an inspiring community first approach to houselessness that:

• is self-organized at nearly zero cost to taxpayers
• gets people the help they need (medical care, social services, school supplies, food security, and permanent housing)
• provides safety, healing, and purpose through a community of aloha

To learn more about this inspiring community, please visit their website at https://www.alohaliveshere.org/.

The work will include various tasks; essentially whatever will help the community. Some examples they gave were:

• cleaning the land and taking rubbish to dump
• cleaning the new property, which was left desecrated
• serving our west-coast community through outreach donations

They mentioned that their elderly, children, and those with disabilities could benefit from extra support. For example:

• collecting and transporting water jugs
• housekeeping and rubbish disposal
• or hosting quality time: interviewing elderly, or making learning opportunities for kids! Making events with them like crafting, athletics, games, etc.

If you or anyone you know is interested in partnering with this community, please sign up for a work day, or multiple work days, at the following Google sheet. We are planning to work from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm on each day. The dates are: 5/14, 6/18, 7/9, 8/13, and 9/21 for now. They are all Saturdays except for the last one. Thank you in advance!