What happened? — Fires in Lahaina, Hawaii

In August 2023, wildfires spread on the island of Maui and multiple public schools were burned down. Maui Preparatory school graciously accepted over 100 new students (largely from public schools) and since this is a private school there is no government aid or public funding. Watches for Good has decided to step in and provide these public-school students with laptops and backpacks and help these students when many of them are living in temporary housing.

Ask — Maui Preparatory School

Maui Prep is deeply rooted in Maui and is one of the top K-12 schools in Hawaii. Our goal is to keep Lahaina students in Lahaina, to give them a sense of normalcy, and provide top tier education to our West Maui community. 

Maui Prep right now is the only operational school on the west side of the island. We took in over 100 new students (largely from public schools), significantly increasing our student body of 275 K-12 after receiving over 1K applications. Since so many current Maui Prep families have lost everything, and we are taking in new families who have nothing, tuition revenue is significantly reduced and operational costs have increased. The school also incurred an estimated $250,000 of damages and loss of supplies in the two days of running as a volunteer-based shelter and supply distribution hub the first week. We are bringing on 5 new employees (paraprofessionals, teachers and security guard). We are also bringing counselors to campus. With this and our monthly burn of $400,000-$600,000 we are looking to raise $2M to be able to pay staff and run the school this year.

• We are a private not-for-profit school and receive no public funding. We operate on tuition and donations.

• We are a new school and have no endowment or emergency source of revenue. 

• 2M is the bare minimum we need to keep this operation going and help the kids we can support at current capacity. 

• This includes tuition coverage that supports our general operating budget

• This includes the basic essentials needed for a student to attend (computers for MS/HS, uniforms, books, lunch, etc on an as-needed basis) 

• Monthly burn is between $400,000 and $600,000

The needs described above will continue after this year, and without an endowment the school must raise significant funds each year just to operate and stay afloat. Thinking bigger picture on what would make the school sustainable, a $10M endowment will generate an average of $600,000 to $800,000 in residual income to keep us sustainable.