Turn the Lights Back On

NHO Giveback Priority

Mālama Kaʻū Foundation is a 501(c)(3) Native Hawaiian Organization. Our giveback is not charity and it is not a handout — it is investment in outcomes our community can measure.

Restoring the field lights at Kaʻū High School in Pāhala is one of three ranked giveback priorities approved by our Board of Directors.

The field lights at Kaʻū High School have been broken for a decade. Year after year the repair does not make the State budget, and year after year the sun goes down on our field and takes the evening with it.

Call it a high school field and you have already misunderstood it. This is where Kaʻū gathers.

Where We Stand Today

By the numbers

10 years — how long the lights have been out
$0 — State funding appropriated to fix them
1 — field in Pāhala that serves the whole community
6 p.m. — when everything on it has to stop

Progress to date

Complete — Board of Directors approved the field lights as a ranked NHO giveback priority
Complete — Cost estimate obtained from qualified trades
In progress — Coordination with Kaʻū High School, the Department of Education, and Hawaiʻi County
Next — Funding and in-kind commitments to close the gap
Next — Electrical engineering, permitting, and installation

We will report against these milestones publicly as they move.

A Decade in the Dark

The lights did not fail all at once. They failed the way things fail in a rural district — slowly, then completely, with no line item to bring them back.

Kaʻū High School is a public school and the repair belongs in the State budget. It has not made the State budget, and there is no State funding available to fix it. Waiting has been tried for ten years. It does not work.

So we are not waiting.

The Piko of Our Town

Piko means center — the navel, the place where a thing is joined to what came before it. That is what this field is to Pāhala.

Football and softball under the lights. Baseball and soccer. Town events. Adult and kūpuna league games where men and women who graduated from this school decades ago still take the field. Families who have lived in Kaʻū for generations meet each other here, and their children meet each other here. That is not something a community can move somewhere else.

When the lights went out, the evenings went with them.

How You Can Help

Give. Mālama Kaʻū Foundation is a 501(c)(3). Donations are tax-deductible, and we publish our Form 990 every year so the community can see exactly where the money goes. Make a donation.

Give in kind. Lights get put back up by people with licenses, trucks, and hardware. If you can contribute any of the following, we want to hear from you:

Licensed electricians and linemen
Poles, fixtures, and LED sports lighting equipment — donated or at cost
Electrical engineering, load design, and county permitting support