Lahaina fire victim & hero: James Adam Perry
Donation protected
He risked his life to help others escape. He drove the limo for days rescuing, reuniting, connecting people to resources, and delivering them back to the devastation when that time came. He kept the AC on in the limo and invited people in to cool down and calm down, and he made an eye-wash station for emergency personnel and evacuees. All of his clothes, tools, wallet, vehicles, the apartment where he lived, and his livelihood were incinerated by the fire. And still, my brother insists on staying on Maui to continue helping. We set up this Go Fund Me so you can help us to help him to help others.
Read on to learn what some of the funds are needed for and some of Adam's story that I've gleaned from the family phone tree during this ordeal over the last week.
WHAT NOW? HOW YOU CAN HELP
1. Help for others
- Adam will drive around and call around and carry things around and always find ways to help others; it's what he does anyway, aside from this tragic event.
- Any donations that come in will go towards equipping Adam to be the helpful kind generous human he already is and will continue to be as well as the general and specific areas of need outlined below.
2. Housing
- A local church found Adam standing in line with hundreds of others seeking resources and offered to help; they got him a hotel for a week! Thank you to the generous people out there helping!
- Adam was living in an apartment in Lahaina that burned down with all his stuff in it.
- Longer-term housing needs still need to be assessed: not sure if my brother will need to come to the mainland or if they can still make it work somehow in their beloved Hawaiian Islands.
3. Vehicle(s)
- Someone gifted Adam a rental car for a week! Thank you to the kind people helping with immediate needs!
- Longer term goals involve a truck—probably obtaining one from the mainland and shipping it over—so Adam can prepare to help with rebuilding efforts (he's a gifted mechanic, carpenter, plumber, and all-around handyman so he's got skills he'd like to share plus potential for getting paid jobs as well.)
- The Westie bus burned to the ground; this means there is no vehicle to camp in or loan out to friends and family as Adam had done previously. Here is the Westie before:
- The Limo took a major beating after serving as an unofficial first-responder vehicle for rescue and immediate relief; this means Adam's only means of transportation—and means of livelihood—are currently in jeopardy.
4. Work
- All the regular bills begin piling up when one has limited means of generating income.
- Longer-term goals: given the limo business is probably on hold now, Adam will probably go back to working in the trades and maybe one day they can still give their food truck dream a chance?
5. Stuff
- Obviously, they need lots of stuff given most of theirs burned down.
- Most importantly, Adam needs tools to help in clean-up and rebuilding efforts.
- He also tends to carry around emergency supplies, tents, clothing, food and other items he can share with others when he inevitably crosses paths with someone in need.
- Adam has started down the long tedious road of government assistance to help get a new ID, passport, birth certificate, and apply for various disaster relief programs.
- And of course as he learns what to do on all that, he's prepared to help others navigate it as well.
6. Adjusting to changing needs
- We will do our best to keep everyone updated with changing needs.
BACKSTORY: THE FIRST 72 HOURS
"They were prepared for the hurricane, but no one expected the fires," my mom said when she texted me in a panic, early Wednesday morning. She had been up all night watching footage online, looking for my brother’s face or car or apartment, waiting for a call and praying for his life. She knew he’d be pulling people out of buildings if he had to. Almost everyone who knows Adam shared with me they thought the exact same thing. Adam has a big heart and would give you the shirt off his back, just like my grandparents (who lost their home in the Camp Fire, along with dozens of our friends and extended family members).
As the Lahaina fires blazed towards the apartment he was living in, and where he had been working on fixing up my mom’s old Westie bus—"I just finished putting in the transmission," my brother would later lament)—he immediately grabbed the keys to Adam Perry's Limo (new business he was trying to get off the ground) and he drove around Lahaina Tuesday night helping people escape the fire. He didn’t even think to grab any of his own stuff.
Adam called my parents the next morning with about 20 people in his vehicle and said Costco was going to open early to help. Many friends were still missing at this time, so we all sent texts and Facebook and Whatsapp messages to contacts far and wide.
After 48 hours, some of my brother's voice returned and he sounded a little more steady, my mom said, as he went into the next phase: how to get tents and supplies to people. And finally after another day of driving people back into Lahaina, he promised us he would take a day of rest.
GO FUND ME HOSTS
We are Jessica & DNA and we are setting up this donation page for my brother James "Adam" Perry as a way for friends, family, and the greater community to support urgent and long-term disaster relief efforts via these Lahaina residents. [Update: all donations will be given to and managed by Adam to use as he sees fit. If anyone has questions about this, please contact me or my brother.]
The fire monster started coming after my family 5 years ago—yes, we're starting to take it personally. We've been through varying degrees of loss and devastation in the Camp Fire, which took many of our family's homes, and nearly the entire town of Paradise, Calif., evacuating our home in the CZU Lighting Complex Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Dixie Fire in Chester, Calif., that took our family's cabin, the trees, and the land our family has been caretakers of for generations. And now Lahaina, where I first visited my grandma and my aunt when they lived there in the late 1980s/early 90s and where my brother has called home for the past 5 years or so.
Adam is a true Boy Scout and Hero. From years of practice, a good heart and head on his shoulders, and a guiding divine force that he believes helped him through this, he knew what to do and when without even thinking about out. He went towards the flames, instead of fleeing like most of us would do, to help others with no concern for himself. I am so proud of my brother and this Go Fund Me is our attempt to help him and join in his efforts of helping others.
Donate here to support Lahaina residents directly—your gifts go well beyond my family and deep into the hearts of many Maui locals and visitors. Please share your prayers and kind words of support for Adam and his fiancée here as well.
Thank you for taking the time to read and contribute in any way you can. Thank you to those who have already contributed because you called right away with love and offerings to get us through that crucial initial period. We love you.
Aloha and mahalo!
Co-organizers (3)
Jessica Perry Abramson
Organizer
Lahaina, HI
Sue Vidal
Co-organizer
DNA DNA
Co-organizer