UH Maui College construction students building sheds for Lahaina, Kula fire survivors

Tiera Arakawa moves with confidence between building tasks at four sheds in various stages of construction on the campus of the University of Hawai‘i Maui College.

She is a fast learner. Just six weeks ago, Arakawa took the community college’s free one-week carpentry training. She liked it so much she has returned once a week, on the only day off from her job at the Maui Art Farm in Kula, to volunteer her time and to learn more.

During the training, students learn basic carpentry, electrical and plumbing skills while building hale pāpaʻi, 8-by-12-foot storage sheds that are donated to survivors from the 2023 wildfires in Lahaina and Kula.

Thirty of the week-long shed building classes have been held since August 2024, attracting more than 400 students, 70 of whom were high school students this summer, said Talia Purdy of the school’s academic affairs support staff. 

On Thursday, the 41st shed was finished and placed on Kaimana Benjamin’s KKB Trucking flatbed truck to be delivered to the partially finished home on Ainakea Street in Lahaina that belongs to Darice and Louis Garcia.

The Garcias applied for the program about 13 months ago. While initially told they were “on the list” to receive a shed in December 2024, on Monday they learned it would be arriving this week.

The Garcias, who both work at King Kamehameha III Elementary School, rushed home Thursday to see the shed being put onto the blocks that family members helped them place this week.

The shed will be used for storage at first, but later it will become Louis Garcia’s “man cave.” The couple are currently living in Kilohana, a FEMA housing project that is scheduled to shut down in February. They hope to be in their rebuilt home by Christmas.

Darice Garcia said the shed “is huge for us” because they are paying $190 a month in storage fees for their belongings that can’t fit in the FEMA housing.

“So this is amazing, especially for it to be the quality that it is,” she said.

The free carpentry class to build sheds, one of several free programs at the college that is being funded by an anonymous donor, is set to run through the end of the 2025-26 academic year. It could be continued if more funding is found, said Laura Lees Nagle, the interim vice chancellor of academic affairs at the community college.

Instructor Roland Salcedo estimated that each shed includes about $10,000 worth of materials, labor and transportation. The materials are provided by Hawai’i Community Foundation.

To qualify for the free sheds, applicants must have survived a total loss of their home or business, own the land with the title in their name, and the land must be vacant, level and cleared when the shed is delivered.

There currently is a waitlist for the sheds and no more applications are currently being taken, although that could change in the future, Lees Nagle said.

At UH Maui College, Construction Technology majors have climbed from 33 in the fall of 2023 to 44 this fall. About a dozen of the hale pāpaʻi students have joined the credited classes as majors, Purdy said.

The pride and attention to detail shows brightly as Arakawa and other students work on the sheds that are in different stages of completion at the campus. One has just the 2-by-4 framing done; one has plywood hammered onto the walls; one has the drywall completed and the outside wrapped with paper; and one has the full walls in place inside and out, and has been painted.

“If this was your home, you want to make sure that this is how you want it to be,” said Arakawa, a former soccer standout at King Kekaulike High School and the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. “And you just learn about homes as a symbolic thing for building relationships … Like the foundation.”

Arakawa is one of many volunteers who have returned to continue to help with the program, which also can lead into a free eight-week pre-apprentice or into the construction technology major at UHMC.

Salcedo said Arakawa is “a great candidate for our pre-apprentice program.”

Completion of the pre-apprentice program grants students direct entry into one of the three registered apprentice programs administered by the Hawai‘i Carpenters Apprentice and Training Fund.

Arakawa admits she is intrigued about the pre-apprentice program at the school that can eventually lead to journeyman opportunities and membership in the Hawai‘i Carpenters Union 745.

“At first it started off as curiosity, but the more I get hands-on experience with all this stuff, I find that I’m super indulged into it,” Arakawa said. “I really like farming, but this (carpentry) stuff is something that I really enjoy doing and can see myself doing in the future.”

In addition to guiding the hale pāpaʻi one-week shed program, Salcedo also teaches Carpentry 120 (basic carpentry skills) and Carpentry 122 (interior finish) credit classes.

This fall he made the decision to leave his 30-year-plus construction career to start teaching.

“My whole career I’ve enjoyed helping people out, building something that they’ll enjoy for the rest of their lifetime, their family home,” Salcedo said. “Now, I’m really enjoying passing on the knowledge to the future generation.”

Instructor Ralph Canto, 73, said the students “can learn the trade … and then they can produce things for themselves.”

And the third instructor of the shed program, Kainoa Mahoe, was a student in the second week of the class a year ago despite having worked in the construction industry for years.

“At first, I just wanted to come in and kind of polish my skills,” he said.

But after seeing what the program was all about, he volunteered about 15 to 20 times before being hired as an instructor in February.

“Once I found out that all this work that we’re putting in, it’s going to Lahaina and Kula wildfire victims, that made me feel really good about it,” he said.

Isaiah Goosby, a 19-year-old graduate of King Kekaulike High School in May, was one of two students taking the hale pāpa‘i one-week shed program that ended Friday. He worked closely with Mahoe all week after signing up for the class on advice from his sister Brooklyn, who previously had taken the class. 

Each student is given a new tool belt filled with a hammer, tape measure and other items when they arrive Monday morning for the classes that run from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“Anything that they offer, I want to take advantage of and just learn the different tools, how to use them properly and just enjoy my time here as well,” Goosby said. “I look forward to signing up for another carpentry class and then also looking at the painting classes that they have.”

Goosby said he has “no idea” what he wants to do ultimately, “but I’m going to keep trying out things at this college.”

Darice and Louis Garcia and their 10-year-old daughter Kolokea, a fifth-grader at King Kamehameha III, were touched as they watched workers from Wide Open Construction use a forklift to place the shed in a tight space between a rock wall and their house.

Arakawa, like most of the students and instructors, does not know where the sheds are headed when they are put on the truck each Thursday. But she said it warms her heart to know she is helping people in need.

“The first time I saw the shed go onto the truck — I was here for two of them — that was the most happiest, satisfying feeling ever,” Arakawa said. “You just want to see some more go on the truck and you want to keep coming back and give back to the community, so that’s kind of what drives me … to keep doing this for the community.”