As tourists officially return to West Maui, some are devoting part of their vacation to helping out with the wildfire recovery efforts.
KAPALUA, Hawaii (Island News) -- West Maui is officially open for business. With that will come more tourists... and more calls for mindfulness from those visiting.
Chris and Stephanie Jensen of Idaho showed up at Merriman's Kapalua to help out. They agreed to return later to deliver meals after a dozen other volunteers finished packing them.
"We're just over here for a month and been here for 40 years, just trying to help out," Chris Jensen told Island News.
Over consecutive days at Merriman's, ample volunteers showed up.
"Yeah, I didn't know quite where to go, but when Chris saw this on Facebook, we thought, we're just up the road a little bit, so we thought we'll jump in the car and come down and see if we can do something," Stephanie Jensen said.
Others moved by the crisis set aside time to contribute, like John and MJ Davey of Northern California.
"I think anytime there's a tragedy or a disaster, it's other people's obligation to come in and help out and be of service as much as possible," John Davey said.
MJ Davey said she and her husband wanted their trip to be different than usual, "If we helped support the local businesses- so we brought a bunch of donations with us that we dropped off to a hub, and today we're volunteering," she told Island News.
"We wanted to do more because it just kept weeping every night," Lynn from Minnesota said. "I just kept wanting to do more, but y'all were closed and then when Gov. Green said we're gonna open up, you know, 'We need you.' Jeffrey and I immediately that day said, let's get out there and help you guys out. The Monkey Pod, we went there and helped and then we came over here to Merriman's."
Island News asked if the couple was setting aside several days for volunteer work.
"Oh, every day. Every day. In fact, this is the morning shift and then there's going to be an evening shift," Lynn said.
Merriman's and Monkey Pod Kitchen, Kaanapali have been actively supporting the recovery. The restaurant group recently made an agreement with the Salvation Army to continue with meal support.
Employees also became volunteers over the last two months.
Now that work hours have resumed, the restaurant plans to both reopen to the public this week and welcome visitors to support the community.
Merriman's Kapalua is delivering over a thousand meals per day. To find out more about their program and to volunteer, you can visit the Facebook page of
