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Community Care for an elderly Lahaina Fire survivor

Paia, HI

Story

Some cases are meant to be carried by the collective. Yvonne is one such case. She is a Kupuna with dementia and cancer. She has not received any fire-relief support or housing assistance and is starting over from scratch at almost 70 years old. Yvonne called Lahaina home for more than 1/2 her life. She nearly didn’t make it out of the fire alive. She still talks often about that moment she couldn’t move as the mountain of flames came rushing towards her. She couldn’t run, All she could do was walk one small step at a time. She had friends die in the fire and her landlord passed away this year (he got a lung infection which turned into pneumonia after the fire and he never recovered). Yvonne’s case is quite complicated and we have spent 5 months trying to get her into the programs she should be eligible for but she’s been completely blocked. They told us to drop her off at Tent-city but I️ know she wouldn’t last a day there so we are housing her in Paia while we continue to advocate for her and help her get through the obstacles. Currently she needs support with the following: 🔹Daily meals 1x daily (we can order on instacart or DoorDash as backup) 🔹helping her to login to email once/week to check her messages. 🔹 helping her with the TV to get good uplifting movies on 🔹playing music with her 🔹light cleaning/tidying (she’s quite tidy but she smokes cigarettes again after the fire and so cleaning to be sure her rental doesn’t smell of smoke is important). 🔹helping to pick up things at the store she might need 🔹helping to sign her up for EBT/SNAP 🔹Helping her get ID replaced 🔹Helping her write letters Other than that she can just use some kind friends in her life. We feel she’s nearing the last years of her life and we want this to be a time of healing, a time of belonging, a time of joy and beauty and feeling she is loved. We thank you for being a part of her life and for bringing kindness and grace into her life.


Special Notes

Yvonne has dementia and PTSD and some days are harder than others. Ways to get in on a good footing is to: 🌞Come with an offering: 🥤Coca Cola, 🌺 some small flowers for her hair (there’s a big plumeria right at the house you can pick from), ☕️ coffee with cream and sugar (lots of sugar 😂) ⚠️The DON’Ts we learned the hard way: 🔹never touch the buttons on AC or TV without asking her. 🔹Don’t talk about hospitals or doctors (she’s afraid of both). We have a doctor that does home visits that she’s building trust with Dr Rez in Paia. He’s bringing a nebulizer for her this week. 🔹Don’t talk about the fire unless she brings it up 🔹generally she gets a bit tired talking after too long. 🔹We made her a playlist which she loves adding to on Spotify so if ever she’s having a hard time put on that playlist and you can help her to ad new favorite songs to it.

Care Calendar

MESSAGES