A Hilo-based nonprofit has landed a $500,000 grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to help secure a permanent home for a charter school that has been without a true campus since lava buried its original site more than seven years ago. Hoʻoulu Lāhui says the funding will go toward acquiring a public facility in Panaʻewa, finally giving Kua O Ka Lā Charter School a stable place to call home.
The grant, first reported by Maui Now, is meant to strengthen Native Hawaiians’ connections to ʻohana, moʻomeheu and ʻāina — family, culture, and land and water. According to the outlet, the project supports work tied to OHA’s Mana I Maoli Ola Strategies and Outcomes, and is described as helping Hoʻoulu Lāhui through the final stages of its recovery from the 2018 Kīlauea eruption.
That eruption is the reason this search for permanent ground has dragged on for years. Hoʻoulu Lāhui lost its entire 600-acre site, including the Kua O Ka Lā Charter School campus at Puʻalaʻa, when lava swept through in 2018, the organization told Maui Now. As reported by Big Island Now, a finger of lava broke away and buried the campus under 80 feet of molten rock, destroying it entirely.
A School Built on Borrowed Ground
With no campus left in Puna, the school had to improvise. Grades pre-K through 6 transitioned from the 600-acre Puna campus to Nani Mau Botanical Gardens in Hilo, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. Those renovations at Nani Mau were funded in part by a separate $500,000 Kīlauea recovery grant from Hawaiʻi County, the newspaper reported — a coincidental echo of the amount now coming from OHA for the Panaʻewa effort.
The county funding only went so far. The paper's reporting notes the school had applied for $625,000 from the first round of that county recovery fund but received $500,000 of the request. By 2023, the school was still chasing a permanent future, with fundraising underway to secure $2 million to buy and renovate five acres at Nani Mau Gardens outside Hilo, per the same outlet's earlier coverage.
Hoʻoulu Lāhui's own website states that effort is ongoing: the organization says it is currently purchasing five acres of Nani Mau Gardens to support the long-term stabilization of Kua O Ka Lā Charter School and the development of a community Resilience Hub, according to Hoʻoulu Lāhui. The nonprofit lists the charter school as one of its key strategic focus areas, supported through facilities, grants and program support.
Why the Timing Matters
The new OHA grant arrives as the agency has been ramping up support for Hawaiian-focused education statewide. OHA's 2025 annual report shows the agency awarded $16,291,380 in grants during fiscal year 2025, and its FY2026–2027 budget includes what it calls its largest-ever investment in Hawaiian-Focused Charter Schools — $6.88 million, according to the agency's own figures. Educational Pathways is one of four directions in OHA's Mana i Mauli Ola Strategic Plan.
The push for permanent charter school campuses isn't unique to Hilo. Across the island, Hawaiʻi Technology Academy recently purchased the former West Hawaiʻi Today building in Kona for $7.4 million to establish its own permanent campus, Big Island Now reported. That deal was financed by Raza Development Fund, which the outlet noted was making its second loan to a Hawaiʻi charter school — evidence that securing lasting facilities remains a heavy lift for the state's charter schools even without a natural disaster in the mix.
Hoʻoulu Lāhui Inc. describes its purpose as awakening Hawaiian culture, values, beliefs and lifestyle in partnership with the community to achieve unity, harmony and total well-being, or lōkahi. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed in 1995, according to its own materials. For a community that watched its school campus disappear under lava, the Panaʻewa acquisition represents a long-awaited chance at something solid: a home that won't have to be borrowed, rebuilt, or relocated again.
