PORTLAND, Ore. — As wildfire recovery and support efforts continue in Hawaii, a Portland-area restaurant is trying to raise money for the people affected.
“Coming from a very small island, even if we’re not originally from Maui, that’s our home, no matter where we go," said Candace Lacuesta, co-owner of GrindWitTryz — a Hawaiian restaurant on 2017 Northeast Alberta Street.
Standing next to a busy kitchen on Friday afternoon, Lacuesta gleamed with pride when asked about the empathy she had seen from customers and staff members.
"Honestly we’re doing it because we care, it’s our home, our extended family," she said. "If we don’t extend our hand out to other people who knows."
GrindWitTryz is taking donations for the victims of the Maui wildfires.
It’s also selling spam musubis — a popular Hawaiian snack — for $3 each.
Whatever money the restaurant makes on musubis through Sunday evening — they’ll donate all of it to Hawaiian recovery efforts and the non-profit Nā Wahine Toa Foundation.
"We had some people ordering about 20 musubis, maybe even more, I haven’t even looked at it, I’m excited to look at the end of the day how much we made so we can donate all to Maui," Lacuesta said.
So far, officials have said at least 67 people have been killed by the Maui wildfires, while many more are still missing.
Tao Tao Holmes visited Maui earlier this year, she donated when she ordered food at GrindWitTryz on Friday.
"I was looking at photos of when I was there to sort of jog my memory because it’s hard to associate them as the same place," Holmes said. "It’s sort of beyond the imagination."
Holmes said it's special to see people in her neighborhood finding ways to help.
"They’ve created such a community around the restaurant itself and to be able to leverage that community for Maui right now is great to be able to see that," she said.
On Friday evening GrindWitTryz share via Instagram that they had sold out of musubi for the day.
"The amount of ALOHA you guys are showing to our extended ‘ohana in Maui is amazing!!💖 We sold out of our musubi for today but don’t worry we’ll be making more tomorrow," read the caption.
They sold a total of 527 musubis grossing $1,581 end of day Friday.
'Maui musubis' are just one of many efforts in the Pacific Northwest in support of neighbors an ocean away.
“I was working in the kitchen, as busy as it was, just seeing everyone’s orders with the musubis was just like wow, you could feel the warmth," Lacuesta said. "Knowing you have a whole village behind you."
GrindWitTryz isn’t the only restaurant collecting donations. Noho’s Hawaiian Café said it’s donating 20% of its sales through Aug. 16 to Maui relief efforts.
Even BottleDrop is allowing GreenBag users to donate cans and bottles to support wildfire relief. The Oregon Beverage and Recycling Cooperative will match up to $25,000 in donations through the end of the month.
HOW TO HELP THOSE IMPACTED: Maui wildfires: How to help those impacted
