West Maui foundation receives $1.25M toward proposed Olowalu modular fire station

Nonprofit organization West Maui Improvement Foundation (WMIF) today announced the receipt of another $1,250,000 in funding to purchase a modular fire station for Olowalu. The Benioff Family Foundation (Salesforce’s Marc Benioff) donated $1 million and the Arrillaga Family Foundation, as directed by Justine Stamen & John Arrillaga, $250,000. This comes about a month after a $1 million donation to help develop the fire station was gifted on the Dell Family Foundation’s behalf.

“While I am reluctant to talk about ‘bad news,’ the good news far outweighs it,” said WMIF president and secretary Joseph D Pluta in an email announcement today. “We are in a miracle in progress.”

The bad news, Pluta says, is that costs have risen dramatically for infrastructure and getting proper infrastructure utilities to the site. “We estimate another $500K needed to do that,” he said.

Pluta said WMIF has time to continue to raise funds while their “purchase and sales agreement terms and obligations are underway.”

“Foremost is control of the parcel itself, and we are striving towards the efficient use of a lease and right of entry will be necessary authority to get that lot ready for delivery of our modular fire station,” stated Pluta.

WMIF-led fundraising for the Olowalu fire station project began in 2022, with plans to gift Maui County Fire Department its third fire station in West Maui. The proposed site was two acres of land from landowner, Olowalu Homes Inc. As of April 30, WMIF recorded gross OFS (direct) donations of over $2.5 million.

“It’s a shocking reality that we are literally the only significant deterrent to this upcoming challenge to mitigate damages from our next Lahaina fire, which may be sooner than we are ready to combat,” Pluta said. “Time is of the essence and lives are at stake.”

WMIF’s sister organization, the West Maui Taxpayer’s Association Inc. (WMTA) has been lobbying the County Administration, and the Maui County Council for “re-prioritization of health and safety over most ‘non-crisis budget commitments’.” While WMIF is prohibited from political activity, Pluta also encouraged WMTA and Maui residents to contact the Maui Mayor’s office and the Maui County Council to prudently with crisis resolutions over non-crisis budgetary obligations.

Additional fire stations were also one of the requests of Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura in last month’s After-Action Report on the 2023 Maui wildfires.

For more information about WMIF and its ongoing projects, visit westmauiimprovementfoundation.org.