AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Members of the Kaumakapili Church congregation spent all day and most of the night Friday preparing for a benefit luau held on Saturday. Above, Bonnie Downey chopped tomatoes for lomilomi salmon.

Luau legacy

The Kaumakapili Church's annual
fund-raiser is about much more than money

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By Betty Shimabukuro
bshimabukuro@starbulletin.com

Certainly there are easier, more lucrative ways to raise money, but few that pay as many dividends of spirit.

"Lots of tender hands here," says Mark Patterson. He's in charge of the kalua-ed pigs, all 12 of them this year. His imu work was finished a week ago, but he's back at Kalihi's Kaumakapili Church parish hall lending tender hands and a strong back to a massive food-prep operation.

It's Friday afternoon. The next day, the church would host its annual fund-raising luau, serving 350 people at a sit-down dinner, plus dishing up more than 1,600 takeout meals. For 31 years, Kaumakapili has made this luau happen, completely through the efforts of volunteers.

By the end of Saturday, chairwoman Jan Maunakea says, just about everyone in the 200-member congregation will have worked the event in some way, chopping vegetables, shredding meat, serving tables, washing dishes ...

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Benjamin Pulawa, Wendy Garcia, center, and Christina Jahrling trimmed green onions, also for the lomi. It took 400 pounds of tomatoes and 150 pounds of onions -- plus 300 pounds of salted salmon -- to complete the dish.

She has 38 committees, from parking to pigs -- "uku pile of committees," is Patterson's way of adding them up. It takes three committees to complete the pig portion of the job alone. Patterson's group did the underground cooking, another group shredded the meat, a third warms it up for serving.

The church hopes to raise $35,000, but Maunakea says a more realistic estimate is probably $25,000. It's not an uku pile of money, but she says the luau has always been about more than cash, and the congregation has never been tempted to trade it in for another form of fund-raising.

The luau, precisely because it is so much work, brings every single family to church. Even the children have something to do. The fellowship, the shared effort, the time spent together -- that's the reward, Maunakea says. "The satisfaction is in seeing our congregation get together and work as a united body."

All the women here are called "aunty," all the men "uncle," and everyone has a history with the luau. Many have worked on the same committees, along with their families, for years.

Patterson, for example, remembers helping with the kalua pig as a child. His grandfather was on the first imu teams decades back.

He's been in charge now for six or seven years, including one when it rained all night, saturating the ground. "That kind of messed things up." Out of 17 pigs, four were undercooked and had to be finished in the oven.

"There's been very stressful years," he says. "I aged fast. My uncles would come up to me and say, 'No pig, no luau.' That used to be scary."

Maunakea remembers her first job as a child 30 years ago, "running back and forth with pitchers of juice." In those years the church had just one stove. "We had to build an outside kitchen and bring in our own sink. ... Because we didn't have refrigeration we had to rent a big Matson refrigerated container." The church now has a fully outfitted kitchen and a relationship with the Kamehameha Schools that allows them to do a lot of the baking on campus. The imus for the pigs are dug on the school grounds as well.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Event chairwoman Jan Maunakea prepared to open the jars of opihi purchased for the luau -- 8 gallons at $250 per gallon. "It's like gold, our opihi," Maunakea said.

Maunakea has worked every position in the operation, "except the pig, that's a man thing." Now she has four children -- ages 2 to 5 -- with a fifth on the way in November. The kids are already working at little volunteer jobs, folding takeout boxes, for example.

Work on the luau begins in January. "We call around and reserve the pigs," Maunakea says. The next big step: securing the opihi. "It's like gold, our opihi." She was able to get 8 gallons this year, from a family on the Big Island. At $250 a gallon, the shellfish was too precious to be trusted to air freight. "Someone flew over there to pick it up."

As the months grow closer, they'll shop around for best buys on paper goods, cake mixes and other ingredients. The cost of food and supplies will run $13,000 to $15,000, Maunakea says, and would run much higher if not for the kindness of a neighbor.

Tamashiro Market, located just ewa of the church on North King Street, annually donates the salted salmon, tomatoes and onions for the lomilomi salmon, plus the limu and some of the fish for the poke. Maunakea figures that saves the church about $6,000. "They're a very good neighbor."

The Kaumakapili event sells out every year. These people know the luau biz.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Hours spent chopping tomatoes take a strain on the mu scles, so regular stretching breaks were part of the routine during food-preparation sessions Friday in the Kaumakapili Church hall. Kahau Sehoenstein, left, and Lorraine Maeshiro joined in.

"Many of our people are very critical when we go to other luaus," Maunakea says. "I'm not saying ours is the best, but we know it's good. We know when someone's serving porkbutt instead of pig."

Ruby Kaneao, the church's treasurer, offered this recipe for one of the luau's staple dishes, chicken long rice. Kaneao says the recipes haven't changed much in 31 years, although the volunteers have come up with ways of producing them more efficiently.

Chicken Long Rice

5 pounds chicken thighs
1 3-inch-long piece of ginger, scrubbed and smashed
2 tablespoons Hawaiian salt, or more to taste
1/2 pound long rice
Green onions for garnish

Cover chicken pieces with water in a pot. Add ginger and salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer about 1 hour, or until cooked through.

Meanwhile, soak long rice in water until soft.

Remove cooked chicken from pot, reserving the broth. Debone chicken and discard skin. Shred meat.

Drain long rice, then add to reserved broth. Stir in chicken. Garnish with green onion.

Nutritional information unavailable.

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