The week after Hurricane Lala, the Kohala Food Hub could not make its usual deliveries. So it went the other direction. Executive director Maya Parish told Hawaiʻi Public Radio that the hub picked up 2,000 pounds of ice from Mauna Kea Resort for refrigeration. It also held a hot food distribution at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Kapaʻau and offered pay-what-you-can produce to Kohala households that still had no power.
None of those were new places. The Food Hub on Hoea Road, the church on Akoni Pule Highway and the volunteer radio station in Hawi all ran on a weekly schedule before the storm. North Kohala's emergency network turned out to be its regular Wednesday-through-Friday routine, and that routine is now heading into Thanksgiving and Advent.
Homes Held Up, but People Were Cut Off
According to Civil Beat, Lala's eye passed the island's southern tip on the evening of Saturday, August 15, without crossing land. The storm was downgraded to a tropical storm early the next morning. North Kohala still lost power for days.
The North Kohala Community Resource Center collected early survey results after a community gathering on September 30 and published them on October 22. The first 57 households to respond reported the same pattern. Ninety-six percent said their home was safe to live in, and most of the damage was downed trees. Among households that lost service, 94% lost internet, 83% lost electricity and 74% lost cell service. Power was typically out for about five days. Up Kohala Mountain Road near Kaʻauhuhu Homestead it was out 11 to 12 days, and some homes in Kapaʻau and Hāwī went two to three weeks without internet.
Houses came through mostly intact. The bigger problem was that people lost contact with each other. Fifty-eight percent of responding households said they had little or no clear picture of the storm's impact while it was happening.
At the gathering, residents wrote on "what worked" posters, and the answers named familiar places and people. The neighborhood chainsaw response team drew the most votes. St. Augustine's was thanked for letting people charge phones and devices from its generator. Residents also credited Kohala Radio's public service announcements about food, water and ice, along with generator rentals, the coconut wireless and community distributions of ice, water and meals.
The Week, Day by Day
Here is the regular schedule those places keep in normal weeks, laid out by day:
| Day | Place | What runs |
|---|---|---|
| Friday noon through Monday midnight | Kohala Food Hub, online | Marketplace ordering window |
| Wednesday | St. Augustine's, Kapaʻau | Thrift shop, noon to 6 p.m. |
| Wednesday | Kohala Food Hub, 55-230 Hoea Road, Hāwī | Order pickup, 2 to 4:30 p.m., with paid delivery to Hāwī, Kapaʻau and Mauna Kea Resort |
| First Wednesday of the month | Kohala Village Hub Barn, 55-514 Hāwī Road | Kohala Night Market, 4 to 7 p.m. |
| Thursday | Walker Hall, St. Augustine's | Strength and flexibility class, 4:30 p.m. |
| Friday | St. Augustine's parking lot | Food pantry distribution, 4 p.m. |
| Friday | Walker Hall, St. Augustine's | Adult Sewing with Aunty Annie, 6 to 8 p.m. |
| First Saturday of the month | St. Augustine's | Thrift shop, morning hours |
Most of the activity lands between Wednesday and Friday, and two places carry most of it: Hoea Road in Hāwī and the stretch of Akoni Pule Highway in Kapaʻau where St. Augustine's sits at 54-3801.
The Food Hub on Hoea Road
The Kohala Food Hub collects and markets food grown by local farmers and sells it to residents, restaurants and resorts. Anyone can open a free account and shop the online marketplace. The hub's multi-farm CSA is pay-as-you-go. It doesn't require an upfront seasonal payment, and subscribers can cancel with seven days' notice. The farms in its producer directory include Kahana Orchards and Gardens, Kainoa Farms, Kohala Grove, Menino Farms, Plants N Such and The Last Resort Gardens.
The hub also rents out its certified commercial kitchen by appointment. Renters can use the cold-prep equipment plus a dehydrator and a freeze-dryer. The kitchen page offers new renters half off a monthly subscription through November 2026.
During the storm, Parish told HPR that damage to the hub's partner farms would affect them for weeks, if not months. The hub's site now lists the regular Friday-to-Monday ordering window, Wednesday pickup in Hāwī and Thursday pickups for Waimea and Honokaʻa.
St. Augustine's on Akoni Pule Highway
The church's food pantry gives out free groceries every Friday at 4 p.m., about 60 to 90 bags a week. Organizers ask people to arrive no earlier than 3:45 p.m. and to park completely off the road while they wait.
The church and the Food Hub worked together before and after the storm. From August 14 through October 16, the two partnered on a Hawaiʻi Good Food Alliance grant that put fresh food from local farmers into the Friday bags. The pantry lists Kohala Food Hub, HIP Ag, Kohala Ono Foods Hui, Vibrant Hawaiʻi and the North Kohala Community Resource Center & Resilience Hub as community partners.
Proceeds from the thrift shop support the church's food programs, scholarships, youth activities, concerts and building upkeep.
The next project builds on that work. Hawaiʻi County's FY26–27 award summary gives the Kohala Resilience Hub $15,000 for five hands-on food preservation classes. Most will be held at St. Augustine's and will cover water-bath and pressure canning, pickling and fermentation. A freeze-drying session will be run with Kohala Food Hub. Instructors include CTAHR Master Food Preserver volunteers, and part of the preserved food from each workshop will go to the church's pantry.
96.1 FM, From Mahukona to Pololū
KNKR, known locally as Kohala Radio, is a listener-supported, noncommercial community station in Hawi. It works with Kohala High and Middle schools. Local volunteers run the low-power station. You can hear it at 96.1 FM roughly from Mahukona to Pololū Valley, and the broadcast also streams online. The current lineup includes From These Waters, Deep Dive, Night Shift, Jazz Time, Metal Mondays and Local Vibe.
In the weeks after Lala, those same volunteer hosts read out where to find food, water and ice.
Thanksgiving and Advent
Starting with publication day, here is how the schedule runs through the holidays:
- Thursday, November 12. Kohala Kendama Club meets at the North Kohala Public Library, 54-3645 Akoni Pule Highway, from 3 to 4 p.m. The Thursday strength class at Walker Hall starts at 4:30 p.m.
- Monday, November 16. The library hosts a Hawaiian history talk story on paniolo history, 5:30 to 6:50 p.m.
- Monday, November 23. Adult jewelry making at the library, 2 to 3:30 p.m.
- Tuesday, November 24. Pokémon Trading Card Game Club at the library, 3 to 4:30 p.m.
- Wednesday, November 25. 'Ohana Niu holds a free share of fruits, vegetables, plants and seeds from noon to 3 p.m., on St. Augustine's calendar alongside the thrift shop.
- Thursday, November 26. St. Augustine's calendar lists Gospel of Salvation Thanksgiving meals from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- Friday, November 27. The pantry distributes at 4 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving, and Adult Sewing with Aunty Annie meets that evening.
- Sunday, November 29. St. Augustine's marks the First Sunday of Advent.
- Wednesday, December 2. The thrift shop is open noon to 6 p.m. It is also the first Wednesday of December, the Kohala Night Market's regular slot at the Kohala Village Hub Barn. The market has featured food trucks, local crafts, jewelry, baked goods, art and a youth-vendor program. Check with the organizers before heading over.
For December, KonaWeb's calendar lists the Hawi Christmas Stroll, with late shopping hours, food, music and Santa at Plantation Market.
What Residents Asked For Next
The Kohala Resilience Hub organized the September 30 gathering in the Kohala High School cafeteria. The hub is a fiscally sponsored project of NKCRC, led by Kathy Matsuda and Kimi Vakaʻuta. Its partners that night were NKCRC, the North Kohala Community Development Plan Utilities Group, Kohala Radio, St. Augustine's and the North Kohala Community Emergency Response Team.
Residents voted with sticker dots, and most of the top ideas would build on gathering points the district already has. People asked for:
- A communication point in each area, plus a buddy system for kūpuna and radios in their homes.
- A kūpuna directory so neighbors know who to check on.
- Bulletin boards in each area, such as at the post office, for people who don't use social media.
- Chainsaw certification for more residents, with the training paid for by sponsors or government funding.
- A shared green waste container in each neighborhood, because the transfer station accepts only one load a day.
Fifty-five percent of responding households include kūpuna 65 or older. That helps explain why so many of the top ideas focus on kūpuna. NKCRC is still collecting survey responses at northkohala.org/lala.
The Kohala hub belongs to a wider network. Big Island Now reported on November 2 that Vibrant Hawaiʻi's hubs across Hawaiʻi Island handled nearly 4,000 assistance requests and served more than 12,000 people after Lala. The organization is now seeking state Green Fee funding to expand the network.
We spend a lot of time on the Kohala Coast, and much of what makes North Kohala work is the weekly routine around Hoea Road and Akoni Pule Highway. If you have questions about life upcountry in Hāwī or Kapaʻau, or about how it connects to the resorts down the coast, the team at Schenk Properties is happy to talk. Contact Us.
