Scholarships help Lahaina graduates afford college outside Hawaii a year after wildfire

HONOLULU (AP) — College was the last thing on Keith Nove Baniqued’s mind after her family’s home burned in a deadly wildfire that decimated her Hawaiian hometown. The 17-year-old, who was 7 when she moved to Maui from the Philippines, was about to begin her senior year of high school but turned her attention to her family’s struggles to find a place to live amid the tragedy.

Nearly a year after the fire that destroyed thousands of homes and killed 102 people in historic Lahaina, Baniqued is headed to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And his family doesn’t have to worry about how to pay for his education, thanks to $325,000 in college scholarships awarded Wednesday to 13 Lahainaluna High School graduates who are attending schools in the continental United States.

“Even as an adult, I didn’t really know if I was going to continue with higher education, just because I didn’t want to leave my family in the situation we were in,” she recalled of her feelings after the fire.

Her school survived the fire, but was closed for two months. Reopening brought back a small sense of normalcy and rekindled her dream of attending college beyond the shores of Hawaii. She also realized that a college degree would put her in a better position to help her family recover in the long run.

She applied to colleges with nursing programs, channeled her feelings about surviving the fire into scholarship essays and decided she would attend UNLV, in part because its popularity among Hawaii students would make her feel a bit at home.

Thanks to a grant from the Hawaii Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund, the Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii is providing Baniqued and his 12 classmates with about $25,000 each to cover out-of-state college costs after other scholarships and financial aid for the first year.

“A life-changing opportunity like this can be beneficial to any Hawaii high school graduate, and even more so to the Lahainaluna graduates and everything they’ve been through,” said Keith Amemiya, president of the sports club, which has spearheaded a fundraising campaign to support Lahainaluna student-athletes and coaches whose homes were destroyed by the fire.

In an independent effort following the fire, the University of Hawaii announced scholarships for 2024 Lahainaluna graduates to attend any campus in the state system. Nearly 80% of a graduating class of 215 students applied to UH campuses, according to school data. As of last week, 105 students had enrolled at a UH school, leading to a record number of college-bound Lahainaluna graduates, school officials said, and they expect that number to increase by mid-August.

Lahainaluna counselor Ginny Yasutake reached out to Amemiya to see if there was a way to do something similar to the UH scholarship for student athletes who chose to leave Hawaii for college.

With the help of the Hawaii Community Foundation, they secured funding to help even non-athlete students. Both organizations are committed to finding a way to provide scholarships beyond the first year of out-of-state college and also to first-year students affected by the fire, Amemiya said.

“These scholarships came as a last-minute dream,” said Director Richard Carosso.

And Hawaii scholarships provided an opportunity for many who never thought going to college was possible, he said.

The continued college education highlights the resilience of a graduating class whose first year of high school was disrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carosso said.

Emily Hegrenes, who is headed to the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in her scholarship essay about how she had to find a way to train as a swimmer because the Lahaina Aquatic Center was closed in a restricted burn zone.

“But for my senior season in high school, I worked harder than ever to recruit enough swimmers to hold team practices at a pool forty-five minutes from my hometown,” she wrote. “With my Lahaina cap on, I proudly immersed myself in my fears.”

Talan Toshikiyo, who plans to attend Oxnard College in California, said he aspires to become an engineer and achieve financial stability because it was already difficult for Native Hawaiians like him and other locals to live in Hawaii before the fire.

“I hope Lahaina hasn’t changed by the time I get back from the mainland,” she wrote in her essay. “I dream that one day all rents on Maui will be cheaper so locals can afford them and not have to move far away.”