Missionary Sisters of Faith Sister Mary Trang, a teacher in Sacred Hearts School’s early learning center, walks with some of the school’s youngest learners along with other students and teachers through the middle of the Kaanapali campus. (Courtesy Hopsing Coon / 2024)
By Celia K. Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sacred Hearts School’s journey of faith, determination and resilience in the wake of the devastating 2023 Lahaina wildfire led last year to the west Maui resort town of Kaanapali, where the community has settled into a temporary location with new facilities and a stunning view.
For students, faculty and staff — who were uprooted when their school was largely destroyed near its mother church, Maria Lanakila, and who spent the 2023-24 academic year in makeshift accommodations at Sacred Hearts Mission Church up the coast in Kapalua — the new campus has been “an answered prayer,” said Principal Tonata Lolesio.
“Coming out of classroom tents, we were just hoping for the basic necessities of a campus, and really we received more than we prayed for,” she said.
But while the new site offers a dramatic facilities upgrade, it’s still not home. Lahaina remains the ultimate destination, with plans for an improved campus that will support a top-notch Catholic education.
Cool classrooms, open spaces
Lolesio and Patty Wurst, the school’s vice principal and eighth-grade teacher, both offered high praise for the Kaanapali campus’ amenities — things most people take for granted, like walls, air conditioning, spacious bathrooms and designated play areas.
“The teachers have been extremely happy for a space that they can call their own,” Lolesio said. “To be able to function as a regular school under a regular school schedule gives them the peace of mind that they can continue to carry out Catholic education (that meets the standards).”
Wurst noted that the older students also appreciated the new facilities.
“Last (academic) year they were at the mercy of the elements,” such as bad weather or wayward chickens, she said. While at the Kapalua mission church, the older kids also had to dismantle classroom facilities every week to prepare for weekend liturgies.
“Having a classroom has provided that necessary sense of permanence that students, particularly adolescents, need,” Wurst said.
Students have also enjoyed the return of outdoor spaces dedicated to play, eating and other needs, Lolesio said. Though the overall dimensions of the temporary campus are smaller than the original property, everyone is grateful for what they do have.
“(The students) are happy they can share the spaces with their friends,” Lolesio said. “The adults are happy to see that the students are claiming their space and respecting it and using it.”
There’s “a sense of security and a sense of being able to complete work without all of the other distractions of a makeshift school,” she said.
Preschool program joyfully restored
Both administrators emphasized one critical advantage of the Kaanapali campus: The larger space has allowed Sacred Hearts School to restore its early learning center, which had to be put on hold at the school’s makeshift Kapalua site.
“For me, and many of the staff members, welcoming our preschool students back to Sacred Hearts brought overwhelming joy,” Wurst said.
“Because of limited space in Kapalua, we were not able to have our preschool program. … In Kaanapali, we have a building just for the little ones.
“Seeing their little faces and hearing their giggles has had such a positive impact on everyone,” Wurst said. “We really missed them last year.”
Lolesio said that the return of preschool “has been crucial for families, especially for young families with children in that age group that really need a safe space for their babies to go while they continue the work of rebuilding and healing and figuring out (how to go) forward.”
Milestones and memories
Wrapping up its first academic year in Kaanapali marked another milestone for Sacred Hearts School, Lolesio said.
It’s the latest in a series of “firsts,” she said — from the school’s first year in a makeshift campus, to its first year in a temporary location, all following the unprecedented blaze that killed more than 100 people in the historic waterfront town.
“As a principal, I’m always praying to continue to have the support of people,” Lolesio said. “People are moving away from the story of the Lahaina fire, but people are still very interested in how we’re doing.”
She described the reaction of donors who visit the Kaanapali campus, which is often surprise not just at the impressive views (the site overlooks the resort’s golf course), but at the school community’s resilience.
“There are tears flowing from (donors’) eyes,” Lolesio said. “They are moved, (and for) some of them, their faith is renewed.”
“It’s been an incredible faith journey and we are really looking forward to the future,” she said. “We’re not facing the future on our own … people who continue to be a part of our story and (who) are also learning about our story, they want to join us.”
Not without challenges
Despite its desirable location and upgraded facilities, the temporary Kaanapali property is not perfect. As with any campus, there have been and will be challenges that the school community must navigate, the administrators said.
The lack of easy access to a church has been one big adjustment, according to Wurst: The school went from a parochial campus to literally being on church grounds, to now being limited to Mass once a month back at Maria Lanakila.
In Lahaina, students and teachers could walk to Maria Lanakila to pray or take children for adoration, Wurst said. In Kapalua, though it was farther from their hometown (about nine miles, versus four from Lahaina to Kaanapali), “we were at the church, so the presence was always there for us.”
For Lolesio, one concern is the school’s location on a shared property. A new nonprofit organization, the Ke Ola Hou Lahaina Resiliency Center, bookends the campus, and with it will come increased traffic.
In addition to working alongside its neighbors, the school also must navigate the particulars of being located within a private resort, Lolesio said.
Finding teachers and retaining students are other concerns that Sacred Hearts School — along with many Catholic schools — must deal with.
Though enrollment for the 2025-26 academic year is encouraging, it’s not quite what the school is hoping for, Lolesio said.
Sacred Hearts School faces the extra challenge of the post-fire landscape in Lahaina, which has seen many families struggle to afford to live there.
When families are forced by their financial situation to relocate, “it’s very heartbreaking because the family does not want to leave, the student does not want to leave,” Lolesio said. “I’m just happy that the school was able to be there for them as long as they were able to be with us.”
Lolesio noted that Sacred Hearts School does offer financial assistance and also, thanks to a generous donor, has added a lunch program.
Plans for the future
The goal for Sacred Hearts School has not changed since 2023: return to Lahaina and to its original home, next to Maria Lanakila Church.
“We’ve been very sensitive to the community feeling of rebuilding in Lahaina,” Lolesio said. “Everyone is rebuilding in their own journey and their own struggle.
“It is important that Lahaina is supportive of what we plan for our future.”
Michael Yee, a real estate developer who is also the Diocese of Honolulu’s project manager for the restoration of facilities damaged by the 2023 wildfire, said that plans are in place for the new school to be built on the original site, with additional features “in order for the school to provide a first-class Catholic education.”
Lolesio and Yee said those new spaces include a gym, areas for robotics and STEM education, and classrooms for other enrichment activities.
The timeline currently anticipates that Sacred Hearts School will return to Lahaina in a couple years.
Wurst said that she is “very much looking forward to returning to Lahaina.”
“The prospect of returning makes me emotional and fills me with a sense of warmth,” she said. “It really does give me that sense of going home after being away for a long time, and that is what Lahaina is — home.”
Lolesio said she sometimes has to remind herself to “take a moment and be present in God’s grace and in his blessings — because that’s where the source is. That’s (the source of) all that we do, all that we receive and all that we look forward to.”
“I’m just continuing to carry out God’s work; he gave me a mission and we just stuck to it,” she said. “We trust in him that he provides for us every step of the way.”
Sacred Hearts School celebrated the graduation of its eighth graders, top; kindergartners, middle; and preschool students (with Father Ken Deasy) on May 28, 29 and 30, respectively, at Maria Lanakila Church. The graduating eighth-grade class included 10 students who have attended Sacred Hearts School for nine, 10 and 11 years, through the COVID-19 pandemic, the wildfire and the temporary campus. (Photos courtesy Hopsing Coon)
