By Maureen Sedonaen
Maureen is Chief Executive Officer of Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco and has volunteered with Habitat for Humanity to build homes in California, Vietnam, Nepal and now Maui.
As so many of us remember, on August 8, 2023 a devastating wildfire hit the island of Maui, causing destruction in three cities: Kula, Kihei and Lahaina. Sadly, the devastation was most felt in the historic town of Lahaina where thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed, displacing families overnight. Included in this loss were the treasured homes of ten Habitat partner families who had moved in only a few years prior in 2020.
Since then, the community of Lahaina has been recovering and our sister Habitat affiliate in Maui has been putting in place their plans to rebuild. In March 2025, I was honored to be part of a group from our Greater San Francisco affiliate, including team and board members, as well as Habitat GSF supporters, who traveled to Lahaina to help as Habitat Maui begins to rebuild.
Many Hands Make Light Work
Partnership is one of the pillars of our work, and that was on clear display during our week in Lahaina. With the foundations already in place, our volunteering focused on framing and I’m proud to say that alongside local volunteers and the Habitat Maui team, we raised the walls for the first home over the course of 4 days. Together, our “Habitat Ohana” worked hard each day to frame this house and served as the first team to rebuild the 10 Habitat homes in Maui lost in the fire.
How to Help
Throughout the trip I experienced a profound feeling of community spirit and understanding of the scale of how much work is left to do across the island of Maui as families work hard to regain what was lost in the wildfires of 2023. In my conversations with the folks there who are so dedicated to rebuilding, what they need most are donations to support their continued rebuilding. If you are interested, you can find out more and support on Habitat Maui’s website.
Our Heart is in Homebuilding
While the majority of the work we do to support homeownership and home building is here in our three-counties of the Bay Area, we strongly support affiliates across our network and are thrilled to be restarting Global Village trips in 2026. I have had the honor of being part of past Global Village volunteer trips to Nepal and Vietnam, where together with local volunteers and Habitat teams we were able to build homes and empower communities. More recently, during my week in Maui, I was able to experience first–hand the power our communities have when they join together.
If you are interested in sharing your time and talent on a future trip, please contact Jasmine Brennan, Chief of Staff who will reach out when details of “Global Village” trips both foreign and domestic become available: [email protected]