Linda Puppolo – Maui Aids Foundation

[Music] well good morning everyone Aloha this is Jason Schwartz your host we’re here at the neutral zone welcome hey everyone we are seeing this year 2024 race through uh we are here at K KU 88.5 FM the voice of Maui M Maui Public Access television which which means you have access to come here and create your own shows and it’s a public service you become a producer you get a little training you have a studio here there’s camera equipment and I have the Good Fortune of being here since way back

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when on the side of the camera here some people think of me as media I tried to do things in the community all these years and people were confused who is this guy he sings He talks about renewable energy all confusing I even ran for politics way back when even currently stories we can write a book I have a great guest today great in many ways but the most important thing Linda papolo is just a wonderful person I’ve known you how long 30 years almost yeah 30 years yeah way back when I was a just

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a civilian and I guess a young political candidate 1992 too me and Nicol aanda and Sally rayback and Joe Bertram were the four greens we started there was a green party starting and I I never thought of politics but people said you have all these ideas about green and all my Maui Arts and Music so I be and in those early days I saw there was this woman around that was were you already friends with nikil and and at the time yeah I was friends for almost 40 years with Nikki because I live in I lived in

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ha coup for quite a long time I see and uh you were just always awake and aware and active and um I just liked it and I uh time’s gone on and for a while we’re here at akaku Maui Community used to be Maui Community TV now they call it media that means the world has grown around them and they better incorporate all these new technologies but the basics are we are a public access station and Linda was here working and uh I guess you’d say you were an executive here right you were I was the

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administrative director administ the wonderful Terry Roberts now has that job wow but I I trained her I was administrative director for about five years and um wow and now Linda is the director executive director of of the Maui AIDS Foundation I was walking to see some friends playing music and their Incognito with hat and glasses it was just that kind of day there was Linda Palo sitting in when we started talking I realized what a terrific guest you’d be for the show what’s the most important things to

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you now what have you been doing in your role there and out in the community I know personal life and stuff whatever you want to share that I just have always seen that you’re always doing something important well Pro people that’s the most important thing to me I’m Pro people when I was younger and my children were in ha cou school I was a PTA president there for PTSA president for all the way through like six years then I was liaison at Kam um uh what’s the school in I can’t think of the name of it where

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is it maw MW yeah the the Intermediate School in muko col col that’s is that right think col intermediate I was the pcnc there for a few years and then I’ve just been in nonprofits for a long long time I was a clinic manager of Planned Parenthood wow I was um the executive director of the pcif Pacific Cancer Foundation and I work for the county of Maui for four years as the Workforce Development executive director during covid very challenging times wow so I I love my role now I like the organization is just

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it the services that it provides are just so significant for the community I’m not I’m blind I obviously I know about AIDS been here a long time where do the world stand on AIDS from what you see well the Maui AIDS Foundation started as a Grassroots Community organization it was even volunteer at the beginning it’s been an exist for 37 years and All Along The Years everybody has been fighting to just get Services because when somebody has AIDS somebody has HIV they don’t have to get AIDS if

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they’re monitored and their viral load is is monitored so what happens is along the way they developed all these different drugs some in the early days more toxic than others the ones now are very good and um we’re hoping that we have no AIDS cases by 2030 no new AIDS cases wow that’s like tomorrow we’ve only had one this year wow that’s fantastic but what we still take care of all the people that have HIV Aid you know they don’t all have what’s the difference mean just quick

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HIV is a human papal Paloma virus and it is the virus and then that becomes the disease it becomes an autoimmune disease which is called AIDS because of something going on in the body and that they’re working on getting there’s something going on in the body right and so what they do now is they have drugs that um different types of drugs that people can take you can um live a normal life now with AIDS I mean not with just AIDS but with HIV you can live a normal life you can um they have a a drug

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called prep pre-exposure prophylactic and what it is is it’s a drug that you can take and you can have normal a normal healthy sex life come with touch closer that’s good you’re good you you can have a normal healthy sex life and you without giving it to somebody else if you take that drug wow that’s great and they have pep like say for some reason you exposed yourself to HIV and you were really worried about it you can with if you get that pep within 48 hours then you can prevent getting HIV so the

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drugs are so significant Advan now now there are a couple of cases around the world that they have found that those people were completely not it’s completely undetectable in them but they haven’t actually said there’s a cure for it yet it but it it it’s becoming um undetectable undetectable means you can’t you can’t pass it on so that’s what’s going on that’s a great thing undetectable in this example means you can’t pass it on that’s great news that I mean just in

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hearing those few words to a civilian like me you know I’m just my ears always listening for things I’m pretty I’m pretty an administrative person there so I’m not the medical person there I just want to make that clear I’m very administrative I do I was going to say I write the grants and I I am I oversee the organization but I am not a medical professional no but the overseeing of the or organization is a skill I wish I had the capacity to have you come work at what I’m

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doing well we we we try to we’ll keep talking about it yes we will but I can tell you you mentioned that you have lots of services and you’re really do a lot give us a little bit of the schmoger board okay well we take care of AIDS you know HIV AIDS patients and if they have the disease we have housing we have a food pantry we have have um case management so they can talk we have um Mental Health Services wow um it’s and we’re looking at support groups coming up in the near you don’t have anyone in

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house you send them to different people no we have people in house do you yeah we have a doctor yeah he’s his name is Dr Brian chin the one of the most wonderful individuals I’ve met on Earth he’s the sweetest most gentle most sweet guy in the world and he cares so much about his patients and um we have a lab we test for all STI we test um STI in general are sexually transmitted infections it’s really really important people test regularly even if they they don’t think they were exposeed if they’ve had sex

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and unprotected sex people should test regularly because STI turn into can be can hide for years and turn into disease later um 70% all head neck cancer is caused from HPV which is an STI holy moly and he hepatitis causes liver cancer say that again slower 70% 70% of head and neck cancer which is like fenal esophageal um in your face your jaw you know is caused by HPV wow which is a type of um sexually transmitted infection so people that anyone could go to you then to get the test oh anybody can come we’re a free

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clinic and cost it all there free clinic free clinic is pretty cost free cost free and my so when you have a right now they’re vaccinating young people um Junior High kids and young people between 18 and like 40 they’re vaccinating for HPV which like I said causes cervical cancer it can cause infertility it can cause head and neck cancer it’s a very very undetectable there aren’t um there aren’t really um um you can’t tell you have it a lot of times you don’t know it’s asymptomatic

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and it just hides and it’s really important to not get that you know to get if you have STI it’s really important to get them treated and well so they offer that shot is what it is at school they offer as an option or they well they don’t they children are supposed to get um they don’t offer it at school no okay but they but they are children are supposed to get vaccinated for HPV to go to be able to go to school it’s all different since you know I have no kids so I don’t

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know any of these and a lot of people are so paranoid about vaccination but this one’s a really important one because it it’s a very asymptomatic disease and things lie dormant for long periods of time and the ramifications come years later gotcha we are here on a a KU 88.5 FM the voice of Maui with Linda Papo the executive director of the Maui AIDS Foundation I’m Jason Schwartz your host normally i’ take a break but what we take no breaks here this is Public Access TV you know I may or may not stay

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here in this studio because suddenly we have to find donors to support us to here and as public access they don’t well you know no one’s promoting accept us so you know I get small viewership got them up on YouTube and up on my own thing Maui neutral zone.com but boy if you look back you know I have thousand shows or more over these years and I’ve been talking about so many different things you’re one of those people I can speak to who understands how things all fit together that this is an integrated

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action plan that when we and nonprofits work together at with the community and the world unbelievable things can happen in a good way what you just talked about is super important so I’m glad that we’re letting everyone know that if you have unprotected sex it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go get tested for your own benefit that’s great and we’re fully confidential nobody has to know it’s it’s really easy to get in and out nobody has to know anything about it everything is completely confidential

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and protected by hippo do you find that your experience that your other nonprofits is it similar is this unique anything that uh it’s funny you know every I feel like every single position I’ve held has brought me to being you know made me better at what I do now you know so yeah I guess I could say I built on it right a lot of the commonalities are that nonprofits need funding and um I’m I’m a good grant writer I I know how to write grants and I care about people so I push myself to

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write grants to make sure we’re funded I did that for every single organization I ever worked for what a terrific skill maybe I can through you because I know you’re busier than 10 beavers but I know that uh you may know good grant writers on this island I hope you do because you know that’s been in my example having no good Grant Rider and some you know it’s like going into real estate and doing a tax def deferred exchange with people that don’t know just how serious they are about all

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these different pieces and it’s got to go cre qualified all those things so it is a major skill writing grants you know it’s not just writing grants anytime you have a program or a the way I look at it is it’s like a giant jigsaw puzzle and every time I have a general plan on how put that jigsaw puzzle together to make it work and every time I write a granite fits another piece in the jigsaw puzzle so that’s how I kind of look at it as a whole you know well it’s interesting I look at what I’m

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doing the same way as puzzle but I’ve never done any grant writing when I early the uh Commission on culture and the Arts I forgot who it was one of the the things uh they said to me we like what you’re doing but we’re funding demand things directly for the public we don’t have money this year for someone like you and so I kind of strayed away from that but grant writing and sponsorship and doing something for the community un I haven’t can you do things that are untangle only if you have tangible

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people that will do it I always wonder that you know you just you got to look for you have to have an idea that’s pretty solid I was lucky when I worked at akaku for instance I was working with a wonderful girl named Cynthia to and she was a great grant writer and I was a decent grant writer so we put our talents together and that’s how project y beam happened for for you know the program they run for the kids it started with us but it’s so gratifying to see them continue it and have good energy

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with people like cat Tracy you know she’s just so wonderful she’s just so wonderful what a good good move on Jay’s part to put her in that position because she’s just wonderful so it’s it’s just you have to have an idea you develop the idea me I make this huge task list of every single thing it’s going to take to write that Grant what do I need I need expenses I need this and that and then I start checking them off and then that’s how it starts developing fitting them in

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your jigo puzzle financial statement to give them show them what you need and why Wow and I’ve got to say it Maui AIDS Foundation I am the most fortunate girl in the world because I have the best bookkeeper on the island her name is Kimberly Craig and she runs my finance department and she’s incredible she’s just the best there’s nobody like her she cares she’s committed and you know she’s just efficient down to the penny and I don’t have to worry because I know whatever she does is perfect perfect she

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K because she cares you know she cares a lot so what’s a typical day look like there for the clinic we have two sides you walk in the front door we’re at the Henry Harry and Janette Weinberg building in wuku in between Maui reality and Subway oh Mau or across the street from the minutes stop right across the street from minutes stop right where right there so when you walk in the door we’re on the bottom floor if you go to your you want to go to your left ring the doorbell and they’ll come to the door

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and then they’ll ask what you need and some days we have walk-in testing some days we have people that come and just um that that have appointments we also on the other side of 101 is is where you come in and you get you know the receptionist takes care of you but on the other side 102 they take you over there and we actually have a syringe Exchange program a one forone syringe exchange so anybody which prevents another disease that we’re looking to try to eradicate by 2030 no new cases by

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2030 which is hepatitis yeah hepatitis causes liver cancer it is the largest cause of liver cancer and um it’s a really important to not have you know exchange needles so we have a all they have to do is bring a needle in and we’ll give them a needle they bring 10 needles and we give them 10 needles we also have food pantry on both sides for for case man case management for syringe exchange case management for people that are you know are just homeless case management for people that have HIV or

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people that come and test so homeless people that don’t have any kind of HIV or right we for po pant we take care of them we do want them to test however we do would like them to test we like food pantry that would be a food pantry that I imagine not every body would know about no we have we have a wonderful food pantry it is um we get drops from Maui food Hub we’re with the USDA program at Maui good produce good produce we had the with the USDA program through the Maui food bank so we have

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good protein um so we focus on healthy because the more healthy an individual is the more able they are to fight a disease that’s good I mean often times the food pantries have things that I don’t want to say they’re all but mostly when I’ve looked there I’ve given most of the things away because I wouldn’t eat them like but organic stuff as much as you can and things that are substantive how do homeless people cook I just do not know what they oh they have all kinds of ways of doing things I

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generally when we go buy protein if we buy like they like the Beanie Weenies the little cans of Beanie Weenies that’s one of their favorite oh those cuz they have the flip can they don’t need even need um a can opener for it so yeah a lot of times they’ll eat that type beans they’ll eat that right out of the can you know and then there’s always they they you know there’s this little little um they can put the water in and they can put the thing under you know there’s

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all kinds of little stoves that aren’t really stoves you know there’s all kinds of ways to cook them you have a pulse on the homeless situation you think I mean you know it’s much worse since a fire much much much worse our our pantry is extremely busy we go through huge amounts of produce and and food and we have um hygiene we also give out hygiene supplies to people you know and if somebody comes in and they really really need help we’ll even warm something up for them you know um we spend a lot of

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time trying to get people where where they need to go so we have a case manager that would um a navigator that would do an intake and decide what this person needs it may not be us that they need we we would have we have a referral program with all the other nonprofits so we would send them to the right nonprofit let me ask you a question that maybe the mayor wants to know so I’m looking both sides to see is there any secret housing anywhere no no housing housing housing can not only is housing bad but the we have a

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housing program for HIV clients and theyve really hurt our clients desperately when FEMA came in and they started telling landlords they can raise the rent they can and it made the it made the limits so hurt hurt the program so desperately that some people have actually lost their housing because of FEMA well you know I’ve heard that so commonly or they had six months you can’t so throw someone out then all kinds of another round of people being thrown out on the street well HIV is a protected status so you they can’t just

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get rid of somebody you know but but the often the um the landlords that we pay don’t know our clients are HIV because it’s Hippa it’s protected and they so they’re suddenly surprised is that what happens to them no they just don’t if the the client would have to say it was okay for us to oh to disclose is there still heavy Prejudice I mean I I because I’m not super heavy heavy pre super stigma yeah super stigma AES after all these years after all you just told me and all control well people

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don’t know you didn’t know that people can’t trans people don’t have to be able to transmit it anymore you know I mean it’s it’s education really yeah well thank you world I hope that you will share this show with everyone you know wow we have an election coming up and although you and I are political you you’re just like me and that you integrate everyone into a love basket this we’re a community and I hope that as these um I want to say weeks go on and months this is a few days how

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many maybe a week or something before the actual voting thing any predictions I can’t speak to it as the as the Director of the Maui AIDS found Foundation I can’t advocate for any um political any person in office of any kind no I’m not thinking that but I’m thinking about this show got developed and we weren’t allowed to be political on the air because I have to give every candidate in the race equal time blah blah blah so value so when you look that back at Maui neutral zone

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shows you’re going to see all the things that make a community better and all the things that I want to introduce and people well there is an organization called the Maui nonprofit director’s organiz yeah Association it is full of nonprofits if anybody wants to know anything about services that they need they can go on that website uh Maui nonprofit Directors Association and they um Can po they can go into members list and it has all our websites and you can poke through and learn all about all the

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different nonprofits and what they do well the reason I said political when and even though it sounds this you heard me say housing housing housing I don’t know if you’ve had because of the different hats you’ve worn and traveled throughout some of the nonprofit communities um knowing the people at the nonprofit Association I really don’t know um you know all this time I’ve never really been approached and never really thought to get there I maybe could well it’s a Professional

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Organization for nonprofit directors is what the function of it is they don’t really go out and Lobby in the community what they do is they give us they give a place for us to post our website and us to work together on issues it’s more of an internal kind of thing so they don’t really work directly with the community the nonprofits do well and and what I was looking to do is linking of nonprofits in what I was doing so maybe I should speak to that group about it’s like if you have a nonprofit you can

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become a member well but and I remember in I want to say 1993 whenever that year was that the cultural center was opening the politics dominated what I was trying to do where you may I booked the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day at the cultural center because of the feed frenzy that all the nonprofits in different groups did gobbling up dates throughout the year so we looked at the calendar and there was this glaring thing called nothing on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day so I booked it all inside outside

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schaer gallery and then when I went to a hotel and the general manager said to me well where where I wanted to meet you because I want to let the other directors of the hotels know that I don’t know what you’re trying to pull the mayor’s office had given verbal approval to a group that wanted to do a um alcohol-free event first light I remember that and how could they I had the whole thing booked and they wouldn’t talk to me it was like so I had to call First Light in Boston that’s where it’s

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you probably remembered from when you were a little girl yep well first light uh very adore Massachusetts wow and I’m a Brooklyn New York so it’s a really interesting quality and East Coast quality you know maybe it’s not maybe it’s just our quality I like being on time and or you have a very similar um I can see your brain work like me e makes makes it easy to talk to you but I keep wondering with all these things I said housing what is do do we have any kind of solutions is there a way to declare

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emergency I don’t know what to do I tell you I I’ll tell you one thing that was really frustrating for us we had somebody call us right after the fire that was very interested in helping our clients and they gave us 10 um mobile um they were just tiny homes and they were on and they gave us 10 of them they were worth about 124,000 each wow but I didn’t bring them here they gave us the freight and everything to the K Harbor but I did not bring them here because there’s nowhere to put them

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because it’s not legal to put uh something on wheels up in Maui County so I went to the council people and I asked them can you know this is this is something that’s really you can just bring in but nobody really at this point there’s so much pressure not to bring in Mobile units and it is really Mo they’re bringing in modular units now but with no wheels right but with the wheels you can move things from place to place so I don’t know why it has to be that way but we never did we still have the donation

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but we have nowhere to put them you can’t take them off the wheels afterwards because then it’s an illegal structure right it’s approved yeah and you can’t have it on Wheels because it’s not and they said well you probably get away with it for three years you could have it but I’m not doing something for three years I’m not these people that are giving it to us are giving it to us for these are brand new beautiful units self-contained and very futuristic I’m not going to take

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advantage of the donor when I know that at some point I may they may not be allowed anymore and then what who gives those kind of rules the council yeah the council in the it’s in the charter and the council and yeah has it been reviewed I think think they’re not there yet I think they’re working on it I think desperately they’re looking for ways to do housing in Maui County but I don’t think um they’re there yet I just don’t they’ve overwhelmed if you go to the county to do anything even our

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grants you’ll know that every single department has huge vacancies huge huge vacancies you know like the department of human concerns I feel sorry for them they um they have like the Grant Management division they have a position for four to six people and they only have two people in there and it’s been a year since they’ve only had two people in there and they have training how can you train people if you’re working 247 huh I it’s not even I I don’t know I don’t know what the the

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problem is with the hiring but it it’s just not happening so when you get when you don’t get the work done what happens I mean I always okay we don’t get our money that’s the nonprofits suffer so it’s like the train is slowing down but that’s our whole County that’s what’s happening right now where are we going that’s what’s happening now I had I have 221,000 with the county that they can’t seem to get to read the Grant and um I had it Proviso to me from the County

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Council and they can’t seem to get it read so I can get a contract and it’s now it’s October the end of October and I you know should have had this the the thing was signed in June you know it’s been a long time so and and and it has to be spent by June 30th so it’s it’s an impossible situation and that there I’m not mad at anybody no but it’s impossible just it’s an impossible situation they’re underst staffed they can’t seem to find staff even the police

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department is underst staffed I mean everywhere is underst staffed and every and the job you know the I was in Workforce Development um the unemployment ENT rate is only like 4% right now so and then but how do you bring you can’t bring anybody in because there’s nowhere to live because there’s nowhere to live right okay so you can’t bring H people in and and then the people that live here some of them may be not qualified to do these positions or don’t want to do them for the pay

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that they are yeah we are and I I just there’s it’s just a a big giant mess right now I don’t know if this is an appropriate thing to say has anyone tried to incorporate some of the new AI things to help accelerate some of the processes in prep for what they do is that what helpful well no it’s it a grant something read the grant write the Grant and give you give them a summary or find the highlights that they need to address to speed the process I mean I don’t know I I scared of that I’m afraid

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of that personally because it’s these grants have specific but these grants have specifics to Maui County and I’m not sure that AI has specifics to Maui County I mean you can’t even if you go to CDC or you go to any organization across the country to get statistics about Maui County it there aren’t any I was more thinking of um of thing the statistics surely are unique I understand that but I keep wondering if the reason that we you just said it in such a nutshell people aren’t

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being they’re not offering enough pay and enough incentive for people to go to work when they really don’t have to and as the services are going down it’s a snowball that’s getting worse it is it’s so how are we going to be able to serve I don’t know well and they’re telling me you guys know if anyone knows the county is telling me human concerns is telling me that they’re going to have drastic cuts to our budgets next year they what they don’t get is that we’re doing work

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that they would be doing that’s not going to be done because they won’t give us the money to do them how can we do it with no money right well that seems like a logical thing who do you address that to I address it to I well I’ve been I’ve talked to the council I’ve talked to laori tuso I haven’t gotten to the mayor yet someday soon I’m going to talk to the mayor abouto who’s in human concern she’s now somewhere else no she’s in human concerns yeah you know I mean I I was on a couple

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of committees here and there and going to meet homeless after a while it’s like still nothing is getting done well and then you look at property taxes the money where’s the money going to come from if if tourism is down 25% um and you look at where where they going to get the money from if it’s not coming from tourism which was the economic engine um and they’re divers they’re trying like heck to diversify but it takes time to do that and it they don’t nobody wants property taxes raised so

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what where where’s the break how where’s the money going to come from well again I I’m not going to go off on a side thing but remember I wanted to promote art music and culture of these islands to the world and take money from that to help supplement development of Technologies to accelerate solutions that are self- sustainable I just brought $81,000 in from Americar which is a organization worldwide I brought 81,000 in a grant and what it that Grant does is it gives um US money to be able

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to help people get their cars fixed so they can get their registration so they can get their safety checks it it gives us money to be able to give transportation to people that their car is broken they can’t get to work or they can’t get to the doctor’s appointments and it has F fuel cards if they just can’t make it through the month and they they don’t have enough money for are these for people that have AIDS these are these are for HIV HIV people that are in need stress at a certain income

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level have to be you know a certain income level to be eligible and syringe exchange I wow well that I hope th those of you that are in those predicaments realize there’s another Lifeline that’s beautiful well I’m that’s what I’m doing I’m writing grants that go that bring money in from the mainland during the fires our organization actually generated 260,000 in supplies in two weeks the first two weeks of the F wow with grants independent no we we um sent a email out into ether net and everybody’s donated

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through Amazon and sent us the boxes the only reason we stopped doing it is because the big boxes started coming in from FEMA and stuff so I see but at the beginning we we were we brought thousands of boxes of di diapers and and distributed them all all the hubs wow W but that we only had we only had capacity to do that for a few months cuz we’re busy you know we have to take care of everybody so we we didn’t um we didn’t continue it because it was being done by somebody else we don’t like to

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duplicate understand well as I’m talking to you you my mind just keeps opening up to so you’ve seen how do I say this delicately FEA and EPA have rules and regulations and scope of what they do when we had that fire in Lina never mind where and how it started or whatever they uh they came in and I imagine the Federal Emergency Management Association said to the governor and the mayor uh it’s our way or the highway we’re the money and we are the rules yeah EPA no I’m bringing it up again but

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you’re talking about grants and money and we’ve seen things here that go on past election time so that’s why I talk the way I do because I’m not political but I am a guy that says hey wait you you’re clearing the housing there you’re you’re scooping up the so much of the soil and you’re putting it in olalo temporarily it’s a year temporarily and potential to destroy the reef and all this when there are the things I’ve had them on my I have eight shows about

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olalo where there are solutions to get this stuff off Island handled no cost low and and I just wonder why they don’t do that and then I get back someone that did research said the mayor it’s not stupid the guy’s a former judge he knows he’s not and the governor these people someone’s controlling the funds I I don’t believe that well when you talked about FEMA taking raising I think they encouraged people to get the most amount that they could get for their housing they were encouraging landlords to do

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that I don’t think it they really thought through how it would destabilize the rental market yeah I think they made a mistake I don’t think they did it with a power Intent no I don’t think power intent I’m thinking that they made an error they made an error so how do we UND I mean that’s my concern the rental market is now destabilized there’s no doubt about that and can’t bring people from the mainland to help because we don’t any housee them and we don’t have

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enough people that are working in the jobs to serve us to even keep the programs we got going on but I will say you got to give uh credit because they get anybody can go to school for free right now to to get educated to get these jobs you know is that right there there are they have huge scholarship programs at uh right now for people that need jobs that need help that that are you know not making a a lot of money and wanted improve their fire related no only reason I’m looking at that is I’m

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you know here we are we’re here to save the day you’ve already been doing what you did obviously after the fire you know is fantastic thank you and like you say there’s more to be done and it’s over our heads financially so all of you out there who are listening that want to give we want to hear from you all the that you think that you want to be learning and growing to be part of the solution we want to hear from you or you can go to these agencies directly or you can either way

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um I am just always amazed when I speak to a guest you are like a fountain of not only information you are uh open and real um I just pay attention I just pay attention because ultimately my goal is to help people I’m a people people you’re a PE you’re a Papo yeah I am that um you’ve uh you know I’m just looking at the clock and I’m seeing we have like 12 minutes I’m do all kinds of stuff I always want to make sure that when I have a guest the things that are important to you you can hear I’m

40:56

jumping I’m talking about issues that aren’t Maui AIDS Foundation but you’re an outside the box kind of person who understands there are no lines between us and them there is no us and them we’re a community especially on an island um so if you have an idea if you have an idea if you have a a little bit of money if you have an idea if you have whatever you have to help the people that are helping the community which is especially the nonprofit Community whatever nonprofit it is that you love that you really want

41:30

to help and there’s a million dogs and cats out there right now with no homes there’s there’s so much going on the fires disrupted us terribly it was really hard it’s been hard on the community in general um help just give a little if five dollar give help where you can that’s that’s all my my messages to people whatever you can do do it yeah yeah that does mean you and I had a song Let’s Take a minute break and I’ll breathe and maybe we’ll think of we want to talk about next there’s a song that I

42:08

heard that was written by a guy named David Frasier you may know him only in that I think I saw that he was the MEO volunteer of the year I don’t know if it was because he wrote this song or he wrote this song because uh for the occasion but he has a song called be the one and uh that’s nice I’m not surprised Meo is a fantastic organization Meo Mau Economic Opportunity let me see if I understood that was way back way back way back Joe sukii who passed it to gladus bisa there was somebody else in there

42:49

too I can’t remember who it was but yeah glattus yeah glattus and then glattus passed it to someone else she passed it to what was his name he was a managing director for a while the county uh I can’t think of his name right now but it was him and then they then that got pass to Lyn mcnf then it got passed the kabibi yeah and uh you know it’s a the the everybody’s overworked I mean I don’t know I’m sure they could tell that same story that they need to find help is it just there’s a lot of jobs out

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there there and there are job programs there’s a million there’s a lot of money in job programs employers options is working with Meo on on um placing people in training you know in internships paid internships for training when I was at Workforce Development I we put we took 40 people through paid internships many of them have upper level jobs now compared to where they were you know I tried to get some training on mikai so people could actually stay on mikai and have jobs that were um remote jobs so there’s a

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lot of lot going on in the world right now as far as remote work and and Maui needs to bring Maui the biggest thing is right now Maui needs to bring whatever they can in from the continent you know whatever resources we can bring in from the continent whether it be job training whether it be jobs whether it be um donations whether it be grants we need to focus on not spending not competing against each other here in Maui County but to look AC cross and see what we can bring in from there that’s exactly what my vision has

44:35

been for all these years it’s so funny my local hero way back when who spoke so I didn’t have to be the outsider was pundy and once pundy had a stroke it was like I lost my champion and uh pretty incredible guy he was a good guy anyway but now is now and all these great ideas still can oh let me tell you what’s coming up from myi AIDS Foundation okay so in November I believe it’s on the 202nd 21st I can’t remember okay I’ll I’ll um look look on our website transgender day of

45:14

remembrance um and we will be doing that at Pro Arts please look on our website apologize TI that I do not have that date with me um and it is going to be um they’re going to show lovey love it’s which is a play first and then they’re going to show um they’re going to do a celebration uh of life for the transgender people that have been killed across the world for just being transgender um what is the event called transgender day of remembrance and it’s on your website and probably proarts as

45:51

well MH yep Maui a.org Maui aes.org then on December first we’re doing World AIDS day at the Maui at the proarts theater as well we’re having a concert and a celebration of life again for AIDS victims that have passed and poo poos and good music and just the day of community well we were going to do a presentation today that’s going to wait but um I’ve talked to an artist who came to me and wanted to give and um so coming soon all these things that I’m talking about about money coming

46:39

from everywhere and however there a lot of howevers and and how we’re going to do it and I I really want to I I can’t even put it into specific words you’ve been such an important part of our community in all the roles you’ve played and you know I know people when I mentioned Linda poo oh I know her boy she has really helped me boy she is really what a nice person she is very aware you are leaving Footprints thank you I hope so now with all this experience this sounds like we’ve seen it happen in different people

47:18

do you have a feeling forever wanting to be in politics to get in that seat there at a council or I’ve thought about it definitely I’ve definitely thought about it I don’t think uh it’s in the cards for me right now but I do have a lot of friends that are in politics that I give my opinions to whether they like it or not oh and I want to also say my AIDS Foundation is doing Pride week not just one day of Pride last year we had 2 200 people on Market Street wow celebrating Pride we’re doing a pride week which

47:56

includes a hike and and a barbecue and a brunch and a just all kinds of fun uh we’re going to close Market Street again and do a big big big drag show and and um show and concert and um where this for everyone right this is for everyone was free free events but I know I remember years ago um so stay tuned wild banana Gallery way back way back you know living Along on Maui you can see the same locations over time change into different things that was way back around the turn of the century you know

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these things were here but they didn’t have the kind of um openness and support they do now and your work is so valuable and so important in involving people outside of the gay community and making transgenders not you know I mean I it’s such an area that’s all for at least for me is an area of growth you know I’ve had U uh little personal experience with transgender individual at least as far as I know right because I’m but I know that there I’ve heard many stories very close and personal of you

49:18

know my granddaughter is now my grandson a lot of that I hope the world will start loving each other and here after this election uh please table your weapons I hope all of us I don’t believe in weapons I’m with you on that one I am just like always wondering where the world is going and with our eyes being so aware and open why we still make so many really bad mistakes you know somebody asked me why am I at the Maui AIDS Foundation why that organization and I said well it was an opportunity

49:56

and it goes back into my history and they saidwhat do you mean your history I said well when I was in high school a lot of my friends came out and I lived in the Bay Area in California and a lot of my friends came out and I you know quickly learned about what it was all all about and and um went to all the marches with them in Honolulu went not in Honolulu in San Francisco the very first March was called The Gay Day Parade it was violent it was scary it was a r it turned into a riot it terrified me

50:34

and um to be honest I didn’t think I I hadn’t been back to one I marched with Harvey Milk when before he was killed when we painted the sidewalks and stuff but then I didn’t go back and I didn’t wasn’t really involved with pride until I got back with the mauad foundation I went to Pride in Honolulu last year and in like October of last year and what was stunning was back in the day when we had a parade or we were marching there was violence and there was very few people cheering us on but you go to

51:08

Pride and Honolulu and there’s only two or three people that are yelling negative things and thousands of people saying Pride love pride and I was just it made my day it just made it all come together for me that’s great I keep look up here because I am just we still have about 5 minutes um I want to play this song for you do you mind not at all now I I think I want to sing this one [Music] someday poor soul we can’t tell if it’s on I [Music] will now you got [Music] circles lost the

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the someone needs to go shine some light and you got to be be the one be the one be the one be the one that help the day be the one that [Music] one to be someone’s friend cat somebody falling down reach out with why are we here where are we going why are we trying to get’s got to out now and you got to be the one many of us have been lucky how to make it through we work real hard to get where we are but [Music] there so [Music] one who’s full of forgiveness one to be brave and B truth truth Wills

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be Corner strling day up in the a down on them need to find their [Music] way the heles to be [Music] I like that was really nice I never even heard that song well you know I know that David Frasier plays like in the morning 8:30 to 10:30 there where I saw you he’s the guy that’s sitting there with the keyboard oh I know someone bought his album and um uh Maryann Anderson who they play over at Unity Church and she came to me and said Jason would you like to sing with us I think this song would be good for you I

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thought me I think it’s a great song and the fact when I looked it up and saw Meo had thought it was a great song so I’m want to bring that song back because everyone needs to be the one we have 30 seconds left can you imagine that I am here with Linda Papo Maui A’s Foundation director we are happy to had you with us please come back next week blessings Linda thank you so very much we are out of here that’s amazing love to you is it not yet not yet be the one bye you guys be the one