Samoan relief
for cyclone is
team effortSeeing the damage inspires
Kealakehe’s football coach
to help
Kealakehe High School head football coach Sam Papalii, who was in American Samoa with his team when Cyclone Heta hit Jan. 4, said he had to help victims after seeing the devastation himself.
"Being through the storm made it even more of a must-do -- anything I could do to help out in a small way," Papalii said.
Today is the final day to contribute nonperishable food to stuff the second of two 20-foot shipping containers destined for victims of Heta in the independent nation of Samoa.
Papalii saw firsthand how Heta's high winds downed breadfruit and banana trees, which provide staples for residents.
While in American Samoa, his football team saw different villages work together, and the team pitched in to help clear trees from roadways.
"It was a harrowing experience," Papalii said. "With the devastation around us, thankfully we were all able to leave, but the people in Samoa had to live with the recovery.
"That's why I really felt a need to be a part of it."
The team, others on his campus as well as at Holualoa Middle School and Hawaii Preparatory Academy in Waimea, shared in the collection.
Within two weeks, 103 boxes of food weighing 3,000 pounds were collected and flown to Oahu on Saturday, courtesy of Aloha Airlines.
Organizer Gus Hannemann said the Samoa relief drive is not the first he has been involved with, but it is "the most successful in terms of response."
Help from Oahu and the neighbor islands has been overwhelming, he said. A schoolteacher from La Jolla, Calif., offered to do a Spam drive, he said.
Former missionaries in Samoa, Alroy and Lehua Enos, are sending several thousand pounds of donated goods they have collected from Kauai residents.
Hannemann said thanks to generous Hawaii residents and a sizable donation from wrestling star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the first container was "filled with nothing but food."
Oahu Samoan church groups and other volunteers will spend the remaining time dividing and repacking the food and clothing donations into boxes to ease distributions to families. A box will include a little of everything, such as bags of saimin, a sack of flour and cans of Spam and corned beef.
Hannemann, who had insisted on no cash donations, said he was caught off guard when Johnson asked if he could write a check to help the victims, and to see to it that his grandparents' villages of Alepata and Falealili were taken care of.
But Hannemann found a way around his rule by asking Johnson to make out the check to Times Super Markets, "not knowing the check was made out for $10,000."
Times provided pallets of corned beef, Spam, spaghetti, pork and beans, water, sugar and flour with a retail value of $18,000, Hannemann said.
Savers, a used-merchandise retailer, donated a truckload of clothes.
The first container has already been taken to the dock, and the second will continue to be loaded by volunteers until its departure.
Local fire stations have served as collection sites.
"I think the community really came out for this," said fire Capt. Harold Ogata, who has two pickup truckloads waiting to be picked up today.
Hawaiian Airlines will airlift 5,000 pounds of bedsheets, blankets and towels to LBJ Hospital in American Samoa, which requested the supplies. They were donated by United Laundry, Pagoda Hotel and Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Hannemann said any leftover supplies will be donated to local charities.