Lessons learned:

Maui's Keiki Kokua Thrift
Store helps foster families

By Alda St. James
Executive Director, Keiki Kokua

It looks like a well-established, well-stocked thrift store that has been on Maui for years, but in reality the Keiki Kokua Thrift Store is just five months old.

Keiki Kokua is a small Maui nonprofit with big plans for the future. It developed the thrift store to support its mission of practical assistance and social support to foster and adoptive parents to help them successfully raise and nurture the children in their care.

Keiki Kokua also serves grandparents raising grandchildren and foster youth who are moving out of the foster care system. Services include a referral and information line, scholarships for foster teens attending Hawaii college or vocational schools, social events for foster youth and families, a service listing of items and services donated by local businesses, and more. The organization’s web site includes a complete list of its programs.

Keiki Kokua began with a Foster Parent Exchange where foster families shared needed items and supplies. As the project grew, it evolved into a full-fledged, nonprofit business, with the proceeds going directly to benefit Keiki Kokua’s foster care community.

It is a win-win project. Foster parents get a 30 percent discount when they shop at the store, and programs like our free luggage and backpacks for all foster children occur at the store. Best of all, the public has a fun place to shop where they know that every dollar they spend is going to a great cause.

Store manager Rosemary Widener said, “We are showing that we are doing something on our own to be self-supporting. During these lean economic times, nonprofit funders want to know that the organizations they support are working towards sustainability. As we grow, we know that the Keiki Kokua Thrift Store will become a prime funding source for us in the future. Remember, since we are a donation store, every contribution we receive is tax-deductible.”

During Foster Care month in May, as part of its mission to promote foster parenting the Keiki Kokua Thrift Store hosted an informational day at the store with Partners in Development Foundation and Maui Youth and Family Services.

Both of these agencies recruit and train foster parents in Maui County, but their programs differ in several important ways and representatives were available to explain their programs and answer questions.

Today, the Keiki Kokua Thrift Store does more than support foster families and help sustain the organization. It has become a work site for other community service agencies, such as the Second Circuit Court community service sentencing program, the Department of Public Safety public service program, welfare-to-work programs, the Maui Economic Opportunity youth summer program, and Maui Youth and Family Services foster youth employment program.

As a work site, the Keiki Kokua Thrift Store offers both community service opportunities and employment to scores of local juveniles and residents, and it is always looking for dedicated volunteers.

Contact Alda St. James, executive director of Keiki Kokua, at (808) 573-4972.