Nonprofit hands out water, food in Maui

The Episcopal Diocese of Hawaii’s mobile homeless assistance ministry is providing direct assistance on the island of Maui to residents who’ve lost their homes in the wildfires that have killed at least 115 people and destroyed more than 2,200 buildings, most of which were residential.

Volunteers from A Cup of Cold Water, the diocese’s Maui-based community outreach program, have been driving a van across the island to distribute toiletries, food and pet food, bottled water, clothing and other necessities to displaced people since a day after the wildfires started Aug. 8.

The wildfires prompted the evacuation of more than 32,000 residents and tourists. The worst of the damage was experienced by Maui’s western community of Lahaina, population 12,700, where the now-destroyed Holy Innocents Episcopal Church building had stood in historic Lahaina since 1927.

“Those I’ve been in contact with are mostly displaced as their homes were demolished by the fire,” the Rev. Bruce Degooyer, vicar of Holy Innocents, told Episcopal News Service by email. “It is overwhelming here.”

Deb Lynch, president of A Cup of Cold Water, said the nonprofit typically has 30 volunteers, but approximately 100 people have asked to volunteer since the wildfires started. The volunteers have been needing special permission from authorities blocking the roads to enter Lahaina to distribute goods to people still there, but they haven’t always been able to enter.

“There’s a great outpouring of love and compassion here,” she said. “We’re all really good at trying to help each other through this disaster. There is so much devastation, but so much love and compassion at the same time.”

A Cup of Cold Water is a volunteer collaboration between Maui’s four Episcopal churches.

Towels, water, food and blankets have been the most requested items since the wildfires started, Lynch said.

The Rev. Heather Mueller, who was ordained at Holy Innocents in 1981, told ENS that A Cup of Cold Water receives many donations from hotels throughout Maui, such as towels, soap and small bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Volunteers also will buy items and distribute them. Some volunteers were staying in Mueller’s home as they continued helping displaced residents.

The Lahaina wildfire is the deadliest in U.S. history since the 1918 Cloquet fire that killed 453 people in northern Minnesota and the deadliest natural disaster in Hawaii since the 1946 tsunami that killed more than 150 people.

The collaborative relief effort in Maui “is a good example of Episcopalians being able to do outreach in a community and being able to share compassion and love and involve their congregations in being able to help other humans,” Lynch said.