The September 11th attack
Hawai'i firms find ways to help victims, survivors
By Susan Hooper
Advertiser Staff Writer
New Tech Imaging on Queen Street is doing free copying and printing for the American Red Cross. A Hilo real estate agent is making disaster-relief collection canisters and delivering them to local shops. Big businesses have written out five-figure checks, and waiters at restaurants from Waikiki to Waimea are donating their daily tips to victims and survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
All around Hawai'i, businesses large and small have responded to the horror that has gripped the country since the deadly hijackings with an outpouring of financial and in-kind contributions. Some begin in the board room; others are dreamed up by the rank and file. But all have the same motivation: to reach out a helping hand in a time of national crisis.
Terry Hermann-Santos, owner of Ono Yogurt, holds up one of the 80 donation cans she put into stores at Windward Mall, while in the background, Gwen McMahel, right, accepts donations from passers-by.
"I just think we all need to pull together and do whatever we can to get done whatever we have to," said Susan Nagi, manager of New Tech Imaging's Queen Street store. Nagi called the American Red Cross Hawai'i State Chapter on Sept. 11 to offer the firm's services. "I just feel like we all need to do something, and this is what we can do as a company."
Some analysts have suggested that the horrific destruction of the World Trade Center, perhaps the most potent symbol of American corporate might, all but guaranteed a swift and powerful response by the U.S. business community. But for Hawai'i companies, the desire to help appears to be based less on corporate outrage than on humanitarian impulse.
Theresia McMurdo, public relations manager of the Estate of James Campbell, sent an e-mail Monday morning telling the 100 employees in the company's Kapolei offices that she was heading to the American Red Cross state chapter with a $25,000 check from the estate and another $47,000 from a foundation funded by Campbell's descendants. She told employees she would also bring checks from them if anyone cared to donate.
"In five minutes all these people poured into my office, and I collected 5,000 bucks," McMurdo said. "It made me cry. For a small group to give that much, that's just really, really incredible. So the total I brought to the Red Cross was $77,000."
Landowner Campbell Estate is among Hawaii's most powerful entities. But small businesses are pitching in with equal fervor.
Terry Hermann-Santos, the owner of Ono Yogurt in Windward Mall, has 11 employees, all of whom are high school or college students. They wanted to help, she said, but since most were too young to donate blood she had to come up with another option.
Hermann-Santos asked the Red Cross for a large plexiglass contribution bin, which she set up near the mall's center stage on Sept. 14. The young employees then took turns watching the bin through the weekend. For their efforts they were rewarded with $4,630 in contributions from weekend shoppers.
Hermann-Santos' 14-year-old daughter and her mother also distributed Red Cross collection canisters to 80 stores in the mall, netting $100 in just two days.
"We're hoping to pick up a couple hundred dollars from each store in the next few weeks," Hermann-Santos said.
Jan Mahuna, owner of Jan Mahuna Realty in Hilo, sent a check to the Hawai'i Community Foundation shortly after the attack, and then took on the job of disaster relief fund-raising chairwoman for the American Red Cross East Hawaii chapter. Her work includes making disaster-relief collection canisters and getting them to businesses in the area, as well as taking up collections at various community events.
Those assisting Mahuna include her secretary, her cousin, other family members and friends.
"These people need help, and that's what we're here for," Mahuna said of her response to the attacks. "This is probably the most horrendous thing I have ever seen in my life. I've been through the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and this was just — I still can't comprehend what happened."
Dozens of other Hawai'i businesses have been similarly motivated. Among them:
• The September 11th Fund — created by the Hawai'i Community Foundation and the United Way in Hawai'i — has raised $208,980 from residents and businesses, including Alexander & Baldwin, Central Pacific Bank, First Hawaiian Bank, Hawaiian Electric Industries and Bank of Hawaii.
• AIG Hawaii has raised $3,300 thus far from employees for the parent company's AIG Disaster Relief Fund. New York-based AIG will match contributions.
• Consolidated Theatres in Hawai'i will donate all Sept. 25 box office and concession proceeds at its 14 Hawai'i theaters to the American Red Cross disaster relief effort.
• Restaurant Suntory at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center is offering a special dinner menu with 100 percent of the proceeds donated to the American Red Cross.
• Asia-Pacific attendees at PRIME2001, a Sept. 11 and Sept. 12 conference at the Hawai'i Convention Center, donated $15,000 from their registration fees to the American Red Cross Hawai'i State Chapter for disaster relief.
Business owners and employees involved in the disaster relief fund-raising efforts say they were motivated in part by the magnitutude of the Sept. 11 tragedy. But they say they have been uplifted by the outpouring of local, national and international support that has followed.
"The other side of depressing things," Hermann-Santos said, "is the human spirit that comes out."
