Tough times bring out the ‘friendly’ on the Friendly Isle

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

On Dec. 2 members of St. John Apostle and Evangelist’s Hui O Laulima hold gifts to be distributed at St. Vincent Church on Molokai. Front, Linda Aumant, Margaret Castro, Terry Silva, Pearl Bates. Back, Vernon Silva, Bill Castro, Father Manny Hewe, Bob Mandap. Christmas smiles on Maunaloa After a successful Thanksgiving event, organized by the Catholic Church in partnership with the local community, St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Maunaloa, Molokai, was to again be filled with holiday bustle on Dec. 13. That’s when Christmas arrives early for the “babes” in Maunaloa’s temporary Toyland, without any Barnabys to ruin the Christmas merriment. For the past several years, the Maunaloa Ohana I Lokahi Association (MOILA) has organized a Christmas in the Park gathering. This year gifts for every child in town were added to the event thanks to parishioners of St. John Apostle and Evangelist Parish in Mililani, which organized the collection and purchase of 168 toys for Maunaloa children and 51 Molokai Drug Store gift certificates for the teenagers. Extra toys will go to other families in need on the island. St. Michael Parish, Waialua, and the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa, also contributed Christmas books, toys and money. Bill Castro, who heads Hui O Laulima, the St. John’s outreach committee that helped with Thanksgiving and Christmas gifts for Maunaloa, said he and his wife enjoyed purchasing the toys with the $1,000 donated by fellow parishioners. The gifts were sent by barge on Dec. 1 and 8. Iwie Tamashiro, of the diocesan Office for Social Ministry, pointed out that while the holidays are supposed to be happy, “How joyous is it when the economy is so bad and people are out of jobs?” “Our parishioners here want to gift the children with toys. They want to see the children have a nice Christmas,” she said. To do that in the most dignified way, OSM arranged for punch cards to be used at the Molokai General Store. Every time a family purchased groceries from the store, they got punches toward gifts. Those who spent $100 got an “early bird” privilege to go first in picking out toys for their children. That way the store, which has been struggling to stay open, gained business, and families could feel invested in the Christmas gifts, though no family will be turned away at Toyland.

Talk to Molokai residents and they will tell you they are survivors. Over the years they’ve weathered labor strikes, the end of the island’s pineapple industry, hotels shutting down, and most recently Molokai Ranch’s closure and the current economic downturn. When times are tough, they band together.

As Molokai Deacon Mike Shizuma put it, “They’ll fight to the very end until they throw in the towel.”

“It’s that camaraderie, that openness that Molokai still has that is probably helping the situation now, stretching the stress that should have come a long time ago, because everybody is helping each other out.”

But times are possibly tougher than they’ve ever been, and even survivors can use some support. The April closure of Molokai Ranch, the island’s largest private employer, and the subsequent layoff of 98 people hit the island hard, particularly residents of the small town of Maunaloa where the ranch is headquartered.

That’s why Molokai’s Blessed Damien Parish and the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office for Social Ministry (OSM) are expanding their social ministry efforts on the island.

At an OSM enrichment day this past June, several Oahu vicariates planned how they would help. There has been a school supply drive, a Thanksgiving gathering, and a Christmas Toyland (see “Christmas smiles”) in Maunaloa.

More activities are in the works. In 2009, Leeward Oahu will handle the school supply collections, West Honolulu will take Thanksgiving, and Central Oahu will do Christmas. Iwie Tamashiro, program co-director of Parish Social Ministry on Oahu, is still looking for people in the Windward and East Honolulu vicariates to help.

However, this outreach is not designed to be an indefinite charity. “Our hope and our intent are to help folks stabilize during this transition,” she said.

Island outreach

Sacred Hearts Father Clyde Guerreiro, the pastor of Blessed Damien Parish, said that after Molokai Ranch shut down “the first thing that everyone seemed to be pushing us to do was to respond immediately.”

He said the parish resisted. “We said, ‘No, that’s not a good idea. We need to first find out what the needs are and let the needs surface by the people themselves.’ And not only food needs and electrical needs and water bill needs, but emotional needs.”

OSM has dealt with the aftermath of large layoffs before, including plantation closures on the Big Island, and the parish used that expertise in deciding how to proceed. That led to OSM bringing in the Oregon-based organization Center for Working Life to train 13 Molokai parishioners over five days in July to do outreach and support those affected by the closure.

The newly-trained volunteers formed Hui Kako‘o. Sixteen-year-old St. Vincent parishioner Ralph Johnson is part of the new ministry. He said the workshop taught him “how the mind works” and how to try “to get people out of their stages of being down and depressed and trying to lift them back up again and into a position of working.”

Ministry members helped those affected by the Ranch’s closure fill out grant applications for Helping Hands Hawaii’s Neighbors in Need fund. Hui Kako‘o also organized a Aug. 27 meeting that brought together 15 Molokai service agencies to share information. According to Tamashiro, some of the agencies had never sat down with each other before.

“The Catholic response has been to collaborate with whatever agencies are already here,” Father Guerreiro said.

One obstacle still to overcome is convincing people to sign up for the Neighbors in Need fund or even just file for unemployment.

“I tell them, ‘You know taking care of your rent, taking care of your utility bills, utilizing this fund is one way to take care of your kuleana, your responsibility,” Tamashiro said. “There’s no shame in this.”

More in Maunaloa

Since he was assigned to Molokai in 2007, Father Guerreiro has wanted to do more church activities beyond those at St. Sophia, the church in Kaunakakai.

“Normally we came out here [to St. Vincent Ferrer Church in Maunaloa in east Molokai] for just 55 minutes on a Sunday [for Mass],” Father Guerreiro said. “I’ve always thought, even before the closure of the ranch, that that’s not enough.”

To have more of a presence in Maunaloa, he built a food pantry and a office in the back of the church. The three Sacred Hearts Sisters, who with a Sacred Hearts brother arrived in July to establish a religious community on the island with Father Guerreiro, now come out to Maunaloa each week for religious education classes.

They hope to staff the office on a regular basis. If someone needs to use a computer or fax machine they can see the sisters. If they need food, the sisters will be able to go over to Janice Pele, who will soon run her community food pantry in the new space at St. Vincent.

“We thought we really need to be reaching out to them because they need us more now than ever,” Leoda Shizuma said. “That’s why [Thanksgiving] was a good event, and good things are happening … We want to be visible, we want to be present there.”

Expanded social ministry

Since Leoda’s husband Mike was ordained as the island’s first deacon in January 2007, the couple has been working to expand their parish’s social ministry.

The Shizumas left their house at 6 a.m. on a recent Sunday so that Mike could preach at all three Molokai Catholic churches, after which they visited homebound parishioners until the early afternoon.

“I come off today from [the Masses] pretty tired after a long day,” he said. “Then we go into people’s homes who are in worse condition than we are and our work seems so small.”

What used to be a one-person homebound ministry program has grown to 12 people. The parish’s regular canned goods collection is now going to the Maunaloa food pantry. Blessed Damien Parish also received two grants from OSM: $4,000 for financial assistance to the unemployed and $2,000 to build the pantry at St. Vincent.

The parish is spreading the word about available resources and getting parishioners to realize that social ministry is the responsibility of every Catholic. On Dec. 6, OSM also held a social ministry retreat for 20 volunteers.

“We know that we need to educate our entire parish,” Leoda said. “It’s not just a team of several people. It should be the whole parish.”

The Shizumas, who are both from Molokai, have seen their island go through difficult times before. But this time they are particularly worried.

“I think it’s going to be harder this time around, because of the way the economy is going, I cannot see how these people are going to make ends meet,” Leoda said.

Leoda has found that she is now the unofficial go-to person for those needing help. People will call her, or drop by the Kaunakakai insurance agency where she works. They’ll also stop her on the street as she walks to the post office or the bank. “Now I’m aunty to so many people, even ones I just met,” she said laughing.

Doing the grant assistance, she says, “was like working in the purest of ministries, I felt, because you’re working face-to-face with them hearing all their financial crises and seeing how you can help.”

Deacon Mike added, “It’s not just Molokai that’s in trouble. It’s the whole country. If we’re struggling, they’re struggling too, but people dig deeper into their pockets.”

“All it is, is treating your neighbor like yourself,” he said.

The Shizumas are encouraged when they receive responses like the recent letter and donation from a young man from Maunaloa who was laid off by Molokai Ranch and now works at Hotel Molokai. The letter came after he received a Thanksgiving food bag.

“An angel has placed these blessings on my doorstep,” he wrote. “This makes me glad to call Molokai my home and appreciate living here in such a small, ohana-filled community.”