MacNaughton Foundation Recipient - Ho Ola Na Pua Building a Haven

Hawaii Public Radio

There’s a non-profit group on O‘ahu that’s renovating a pair of buildings to serve as a shelter for young girls.

It needed some assistance with design and construction — and another local group stepped up to help.

When it’s complete, Pearl Haven will be a 32-bed facility geared around sheltering and counseling Hawaiʻi’s underage female victims of sex trafficking. Right now it’s a work in progress for the nonprofit developing the shelter, Hoʻōla Nā Pua. But that progress has been substantial.

Executive Director Jessica Munoz has found allies in the architecture and real estate development fields who have answered the call to help convert existing and abandoned old buildings into a state-of-the-art residential care facility.

The architecture firms AHL and Design Partners, along with engineering firms, have donated design services worth about $800,000. Now a foundation begun by real estate developers The MacNaughton Group have given Hoʻōla Nā Pua a $200,000 grant, and has hosted private events to connect the nonprofit with its network of high-powered donors. The MacNaughton Group Foundation is just two years old and aiming to make a big impact, last year it donated $1 million toward the U.S. Vets program in Kalaeloa.

Construction work is underway as fundraising continues. Hoʻōla Nā Pua is halfway to its overall goal of just over $8 million to make Pearl Haven a reality.