On Saturday, Oct. 10, volunteers spread across Lahaina to pick up litter and debris during the 22nd annual Lahaina Town Cleanup. The event had been moved from Sept. 26 as Hurricane Nolo approached, then went ahead from 8 a.m. to noon. For some people whose homes were lost in the 2023 wildfire, organizer Tambara Garrick said, returning to a shared place of service offered a chance for healing.
The LahainaTown Action Committee’s event page listed registration at Lahaina Cannery and cleanup areas stretching from Olowalu to Nāpili, from the beach to the highway and up Lahainaluna Road. The wide footprint linked beaches, parks, surf spots, harbors, roadways and neighborhoods. Maui News reported from Wahikuli Wayside Park and from a spot near Lahaina Harbor, where volunteers chose areas with personal connections.
A woman whose home was destroyed in the 2023 Lahaina fire arrived before sunrise, Maui News reported. Others followed, including a Wailuku family whose grandparents had lived in Lahaina and people who surf at Lahaina Harbor. The cleanup was one morning of practical work, but the people who came described ties to the town that went beyond the bags they carried.
Garrick, the cleanup organizer and LahainaTown Action Committee director, told Maui News that the event gave some survivors an opportunity to heal while bringing people together to care for the land and ocean. She said the cleanup had continued for 22 years, including through the pandemic and after the fire. She has been part of the organizing committee since 2012, the report said.
The physical result was substantial. Garrick said volunteers collected more than a ton of rubbish, scrap metal and appliances, along with 10 tires. The Maui News report did not describe that total as a full inventory of everything removed from every cleanup site. It did record a concrete outcome from the morning and a mix of bulky items that required more than a quick walk with a litter bag.
The groups included Scouting America, Lahainaluna High School students, volunteer teams from Kāʻanapali resorts, the Surfrider Foundation and the Lahaina Restoration Foundation. Their participation put school, conservation and community organizations alongside residents and visitors in the same townwide effort. The event was held with the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup and Mālama Maui Nui’s Get the Drift and Bag It! campaign.
At Wahikuli Wayside Park, Wailuku residents Jay Murasaki and Precious Naleieha picked up trash with Naleieha’s sons, Landon and Makaiah. Maui News reported that the family had registered for the cleanup and that Naleieha and Murasaki both had relatives in Lahaina. Naleieha said she wanted the park to be clean when her children went there to play, and that taking part taught them to care for the land.
Naleieha also told the newspaper that her family had organized cleanups of its own near the Wailuku River and Wailuku Elementary School park. That detail put the Lahaina trip in the context of a habit, rather than a one-time photo opportunity. The family chose to help in a place where its relatives had lived, then returned to a kind of work it had already done at home.
Lahaina surfers Lyndsey Kenefick and Esme Brumer selected a site just north of Lahaina Harbor, where they surf. Kenefick told Maui News that it felt right to clean up a place they used. Their choice made the work local in a specific way: volunteers were not only assigned a section of shoreline but could select a stretch connected to their own routines.
The cleanup’s history was part of the story, too. The LahainaTown Action Committee says thousands of volunteers have helped clean more than seven square miles of Lahaina over the past two decades, including two boat harbors, seven surf spots and numerous parks. Those figures come from the organizer, which describes the event as a long-running community effort rather than a single post-fire initiative.
The event was open to residents, visitors, families, students, businesses and community organizations, according to the Oct. 9 Maui Now preview. The LahainaTown Action Committee said the first 300 volunteers would receive event shirts, and that coffee, breakfast burritos, a water refill station and music were arranged for the morning. Maui News later reported that the first 300 received shirts and described the food and coffee stations.
A cleanup cannot replace homes or resolve the losses caused by a wildfire. The reporting does not claim that it did. It documents a smaller, visible contribution: neighbors and visitors spent a morning caring for places they knew, while people with Lahaina ties chose where to work and why. Garrick described that combination of service and togetherness as meaningful for some survivors.
The 22nd cleanup also connected local volunteers with a wider coastal effort. Organizers linked it to international and Maui-based campaigns, but the day’s reported results were grounded in Lahaina: familiar beaches, parks and surf spots; volunteers from nearby communities; and a mix of rubbish, scrap metal, appliances and tires removed from the area.
Reader responses