Lahaina resident Archie Kalepa opened up his home immediately after the August fires to anyone who needed shelter. Now, he’s inviting residents from across the state for an event he believes will help bring healing to the community.
“This will be an opportunity for us to reflect on not only what we've come out of, what we've walked through, but our heading, our new direction and how important it is for us to be unified,” Kalepa said.
Kalepa’s nonprofit, Lele Aloha, is organizing the Ho’ūlu Lahaina Unity Gathering, scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 20.
“Maybe because of our everyday struggles, we truly don't recognize how unified we really are,” he continued. “This will give us the opportunity to walk with each other, to be with each other and to realize that we are unified. That this is unity in probably its greatest form because of the adversity that we've lived through.”
Kalepa is a renowned waterman, voyaging canoe crewmember and leader in ocean rescue and safety. He’s brought community leadership since day one of the fire and shares his perspective in the fire recovery process.
He said this is an opportunity for a clean slate to rebuild not only Lahaina, but for the whole state.
“There's been some monumental things that have happened in my lifetime from 1976 when Hōkūleʻa successfully celestially navigated to and from Tahiti,” he said. “It was a time when we were looking for our identity, and that happened. Through that, there's been a big revival of hula, language, culture. Then Maunakea happened. It was a chance to take a stand. This — Lahaina, what's happened — gives us a clean page to rebuilding what I think all of us in Hawaiʻi have been wishing for, for a long time.”
Now, there is an opportunity.
“We have a chance to change that narrative,” he continued. “I want to put it in terms of navigation, I want to put it in terms of voyaging: change our compass, change our heading.”
The event’s cultural protocol coordinator, Oralani Koa, said entering the second phase of recovery may bring growing pains.
“Everybody's vision may be different of how we see the growth of Lahaina,” she explained.
“But going from phase one, where we really see Uncle Archie come in and raise up these hubs and bring in survival mode, bring in necessities of our people to just even survive and breathe, to this next phases of getting people into a place in a home, how do we get them back to their land.”
Kalepa said people may not like to hear it, but he praises the government for what they’ve done so far and said recovery takes time.
“From day one it was told to all of us, that this is a marathon,” he explained. “I think what we all were hoping for and part of our mental struggle, was that this would happen sooner than later. I can say government has learned a lot. They're doing everything they can. As a people, we're in this place of expecting things to happen sooner. The reality of it is when you actually do it and live through it, it doesn't happen overnight.”
The unity walk begins at 8 a.m. on Lahaina Bypass Road and ends at Launiupoko Beach.
“We're going to honor the different places that were truly significant throughout the history of Hawaiʻi, understanding that a lot had happened in Lahaina, a lot of our history started in Lahaina and so we're going to honor those places. We're going to honor families that has come from those areas,” Koa said.
It will include cultural protocol, followed by a celebration of all the different ethnicities that make up Lahaina.
“You will actually see the different dances of these cultures,” Koa continued. “You will experience the different foods that come from those particular places, that will lead us to the ending of the actual walk.”
Once participants reach Launiupoko Beach, there will be speeches, music and celebrations.
“It is with our hope as a community that we can hold that torch to shine the light in the dark, for the new heading of this canoe for Hawaiʻi,” Kalepa said. “So join us. Be with us. This is an invitation — to the people of Hawaiʻi, across the United States and around the world — come and be with us on Jan. 20. Walk with us. See what happened, think about what we can do, and how we're going to do it.”
Maps, parking info, registration and event details can be found at lelealoha.org.
