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A8 — Tuesday, March 16, 2021 — THE MAUI NEWS
NATION
Working to Solve Hawai‘i’s Greatest Challenges Together
HOMEGROWN FOOD DISTRIBUTION In ‘olelo, ¯ Ho‘omana means “to empower.” This is what Pristine and Tyra-Li Perry sought out to do for East Maui. The sisters, students at Hana ¯ High School, started Project Ho‘omana to support their community. This past Halloween, they saw an opportunity for their help when an alternative was needed to the customary door-to-door visits by kids in the neighborhood due to COVID. They teamed up with Hana Arts, a nonprofit that offers arts and culture programs to East Maui. The organization had moved their lessons online and had been distributing accompanying “ArtPacks” with materials like paints or lei needles as well as snacks provided by the Maui Food Bank via drive-thru events and farmer’s markets. Together, they held a drive-thru event and encouraged families to decorate their vehicles for a “costume contest.” More than 800 candy-filled bags were passed out, with hidden “golden tickets” in four of the bags – a nod to Willy Wonka – for special prizes. Combining forces for Halloween proved so successful that Maui Food Bank asked Hana Arts and Project Ho‘omana to assist with their monthly food distributions known as ‘Ohana Drops, which occur on the fourth Tuesday of each month at Hana ¯ Cultural Center. Each month they distribute 200 boxes to local families. “Honestly we didn’t expect our little grassroots, family-based project to come this far,” says the girls’ mother, Leina‘ala Perry, who is also a co-founder of Project Ho‘omana. “In a year, we have come into contact or gave assistance to over 2,500 people. That’s huge for us small-town country girls.” Hana Arts helps with the coordination and outreach while Project Ho‘omana provides the muscle – the Perry family hauls the goods, sets up for the event, handles check-in, passes out the food and breaks down the event. It’s an all-day affair. For those who can’t attend, the family will make house deliveries. The Hana ¯ community experienced a major pause in economic activity as tourism halted and the road closed from March-October 2020. “Everybody’s unsure of how things are going to be tomorrow or next month. These boxes put food in the pantry and that’s one less thing for families to worry about. It can free their minds to think about the bigger stressors, like securing employment,” says Becky Elizabeth Lind, the executive director of Hana Arts. “Pristine and Tyra-Li pretty much are the ‘heart of it all.’ They work like adults and put their hearts and souls into it,” says Perry. DID YOU KNOW? Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s Maui County Strong Fund helped Project Ho‘omana and Hana ¯ Arts cover the cost of logistics. To learn how to donate to the Maui County Strong Fund, please visit https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong
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Colorado and Wyoming, shutting down roads, closing state legislatures in both states and IN BRIEF interfering with COVID-19 vaccinations. The Associated Press The 27 inches that had fallen by the end of Sunday at Denver Team investigating International Airport made it Tesla-semi crash the fourth biggest snowfall in DETROIT — The U.S. the city’s history, according to government’s highway safety the National Weather Service. agency is sending a team to Detroit to investigate a crash Car hits homeless involving a Tesla that drove camp; 3 killed beneath a semitrailer. SAN DIEGO — A driver The National Highway Trafplowed through a sidewalk fic Safety Administration said homeless encampment MonMonday that a special crash investigation team will go to the day in downtown San Diego, city to investigate the violent killing three people and injurcrash that left two people criti- ing six others, authorities said. Craig Voss, 71, was heading cally injured. The circumstances are simi- through a tunnel underneath a lar to two in Florida in which college campus when he drove Teslas drove beneath tractor- his Volvo station wagon up on trailers, causing two deaths. In the sidewalk shortly after 9 both crashes, in 2016 and a.m., San Diego Police Chief 2019, the cars were being driv- David Nisleit said. Voss was arrested at the en while using Tesla’s partially scene. He faces three counts of automated driving software. Detroit police said that a vehicular manslaughter, five Tesla sedan drove through an counts of causing great bodily intersection around 3:20 a.m. harm and a felony DUI. Thursday, struck the trailer and FBI: No politics in became wedged beneath it.
‘Amityville Horror’ killer dies at 69 ALBANY, N.Y. — The man convicted of slaughtering his parents and four siblings in a home that later inspired the “The Amityville Horrorî” book and movies has died, prison officials said Monday. Ronald DeFeo, 69, died Friday at Albany Medical Center, the state Department of Corrections and Community Services said. The cause of death wasn’t immediately known. DeFeo was serving a sentence of 25 years to life in the 1974 killings in Amityville, on suburban Long Island. The home became the basis of a horror-movie classic after another family briefly lived there about a year after the killings and claimed the house was haunted. A book and two movies portrayed a home with strange voices, walls that oozed slime, furniture that moved on its own, and other supernatural features.
Denver airport reopens after storm DENVER — Denver’s airport reopened Monday after a powerful late winter snowstorm dumped over 3 feet of heavy, wet snow on parts of
Nashville bombing
WASHINGTON — The man who blew himself up inside his recreational vehicle in a Christmas Day bombing in Nashville was grappling with paranoia and conspiracy theories, but there are no indications he was motivated by social or political ideology, the FBI said Monday in closing out the investigation. Though the blast damaged dozens of buildings, it took place early on a holiday morning well before downtown streets would be bustling with activity and was preceded by a recorded announcement warning anyone in the area that a bomb would soon detonate. Anthony Quinn Warner chose the location and timing so that the explosion would be impactful while still minimizing the likelihood of “undue injury,” according to the FBI, which also concluded that the Antioch, Tenn., man acted alone and set off the bomb to end his own life. The report found that Warner was driven in part by his longtime beliefs in several “eccentricî conspiracy theories” and paranoia, as well as “the loss of stabilizing anchors and deteriorating interpersonal relationships.î Investigators were told by some of the people they
interviewed that Warner believed shape-shifting reptiles take on a human form to gain control over society and that he discussed trips to hunt aliens.
US air travel recovering quickly Across the United States, air travel is recovering quickly from the depths of the pandemic, and it is showing up in longer security lines and busier traffic on airline websites. The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1.3 million people both Friday and Sunday, setting a new high since the coronavirus outbreak devastated travel a year ago. Airlines say they believe the numbers are heading up, with more people booking flights for spring and summer. Shares of the four biggest U.S. carriers hit their highest prices in more than a year.
Vaccine hesitancy threatens virus fight Public health officials face a challenge as the U.S. intensifies its efforts for widespread vaccinations that could put an end to a devastating pandemic that has left more than 530,000 dead. The campaign could falter if it becomes another litmus test in America’s raging culture wars, just as mandates for mask-wearing were a point of polarizations. While polls have found vaccine hesitancy falling overall, opposition among Republicans remains stubbornly strong. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 42 percent of Republicans say they probably or definitely will not get the shot, compared with 17 percent of Democrats. While demand for vaccinations still far outstrips the available supply in most parts of the country, there are signs in some places of slowing registration. And the impact is expected to grow when supply begins to surpass demand, said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “If we get stuck at 60 or 65 percent vaccinated, we are going to continue to see significant outbreaks and real challenges in our country, and it’s going to be much, much harder to get back to what we think is normal unless we can get that number higher,” he said.î