Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson have donated $10 million to help establish a fund that will provide direct financial assistance to Maui residents displaced by catastrophic wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes on the island, they said them on Thursday.
The new initiative, called the People’s Fund of Maui, is offering payments of $1,200 per month to adults whose homes were destroyed or made uninhabitable by the wildfires in Lahaina and Kula this month. The support is available to both homeowners and renters, but not to property owners who do not live in their own homes.
The fund aims to “put money directly into the hands of those most affected,” said Mr. Johnson, the actor and former wrestler known as “The Rock,” who is of part Polynesian descent and grew up for a time in Hawaii statement.
“People can have their own agency and decide for themselves what they need and what their family needs – that’s our goal,” Ms. Winfrey added in a video on Instagram. She promised that public donations to the fund would go directly to the victims.
The fund is the latest non-governmental initiative to help wildfire survivors. Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered survivors an immediate payment of $700 for much-needed food and water and other forms of assistance, West Maui residents were more likely to say help was needed more quickly and that ad hoc volunteer networks more than the federal government and local agencies.
Many Native Hawaiians and other longtime residents fear they may not be able to afford to rebuild their lives on an island that was already facing a housing shortage before the wildfires burned more than 2,000 buildings and forced thousands of people into shelters.
Some workers who keep Maui’s booming tourism industry running have also been pushed out of the mainland by wealthy buyers, including billionaires like Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Ms. Winfrey. According to local news site Maui Now, she has lived part-time on Maui for more than 15 years and purchased 870 acres of land in Kula for nearly $6.6 million earlier this year.
Ms. Winfrey and Mr. Johnson said they founded the People’s Fund of Maui under the leadership of community residents and leaders, including prominent singer Kealiʻi Reichel, a native of Lahaina, and Hōkūlani Holt, a community leader and kumu hula, or hula- Teacher.
In the days following the wildfires, Ms. Holt led a series of traditional Hawaiian ceremonies to bring spiritual healing to the island. Ms. Winfrey quietly attended one.
Ed Suwanjindar, a Kula resident who is head of marketing and community for Airbnb’s nonprofit arm, talent manager Shep Gordon and actor Jason Momoa, who is of Hawaiian descent, also helped launch the fund, according to the statement.