We Are Puna Strong

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The 2018 Kīlauea eruption destroyed hundreds of homes, covered miles of roadways, and altered the landscape of lower Puna. But, through this adversity, the people of Puna have shown their resilience. The County is aiming to tell the stories that show how residents rose to the challenge and implemented community-driven actions, often with partnership from the County. Puna Strong is a grant program supported by the County of Hawai'i and Hawai'i Community Foundation that remains focused on disaster readiness and building community resilience for the Puna communities impacted by the 2018 Kīlauea eruption on the Island of Hawai‘i with an investment in nonprofit organizations and partnerships leading community-driven projects.

For more information on our Puna Strong grantees, click here.

Puna Strong Highlight Videos:

Presentations:

June 13, 2023:

If you missed our webinar with Hawai'i Tracker about the AI revolution, not to worry! Check out the video below:

April 19, 2023:

PART I + PART II of the Grants for Grassroots webinars including recordings, slides and additional resources.

PART I + PART II WEBINAR RESOURCES:

PART I - Grant Vocabulary + Narrative

Webinar Recording
Slide deck
Federal grants training series that includes information on the SAM.gov and DUNS numbers
More on de minimis rate
Additional grant vocabulary

PART II - Funder Landscape

On Friday February 24th, 2023, Puna Strong held two Technical Assistance presentations about non-profit board recruitment and board governance.

Session 1: Board Recruitment slide deck and accompanying audio:

Session 2: Board Governance slide deck and accompanying audio:

Pōhāhā I Ka Lani

Website: www.pohahaikalani.com

Puna is the home base for Pōhāhā I Ka Laniʻs. Throughout the years we have offered programs which include a series of workshops on kālai papa kuʻi ʻai, kālai pōhaku kuʻi ʻai, traditional hale building, how to build rock walls, we offered monthly opportunities for keiki to come and learn how to make imu and preparing food such as laulau, kulolo, pounding poi, squid lūʻau, workshops on song composition, workshops on ʻōhiʻa and projects on growing ʻōhiʻa (we are doing our best to grow as many different colors of lehua), we offered Hawaiian Language classes and how to make different types of lei. Our Puna site often had kids lined up practicing hula, learning chants and learning different planting styles.

Due to Covid-19, we shifted how we operated and focused on feeding families and assisting families to start their own home gardens. We donated lots of different trees such as ulu, kukui, noni, niu, lots of different varieties of kalo, bananas and sugarcane. At times, when kūpuna needed further assistance, our team members helped with arborist work and we were able to rent a chipper from Home Depot and assisted kūpuna in chipping their trees to further help with their home gardens.

We look forward working with and serving families of Puna!

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