Help Clark family & Tru.X keep serving Lahaina

Hi, my name is Shannon and I’m fundraising on behalf of my Lahaina childhood friends Kimo and Seanna Clark and their company Truth Excavation.

The Clark Family has lost everything in the fire. Their home, mother-in-law unit, and a tiny house that they rented out were all lost -three families were displaced.

On August 8th Kimo and TRU.X crew spent the entire day and into the night fighting the fire in the upper Lahainaluna bypass area. These efforts were successful in saving Kimo’s parents' home and many of their neighbor's homes.

Around 9pm Kimo returned home to Wahikuli Road in north Lahaina to retrieve personal items before meeting up with his family in Napili where they were staying with friends. He woke up early the next morning and found out his neighborhood had been destroyed. We will post the videos below.

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Kimo and his family have been giving back to this community for years during natural disasters and fighting fires or helping with floods. They need your help to keep the crew at Truth Excavation employed and working to clean up Lahaina until state or federal disaster clean-up jobs become available.

We need your support to help make their payroll. $40,000 a week is the company's overhead with fuel, payroll, equipment, loans, and insurance.

Kimo wants to take care of his employees as they have been working day and night for free to help with this disaster. It will be months without pay till paid contracting work can start.

#LahainaFirst and #LahainaStrong

The Clark family's personal expenses to cover the mortgage, food, medical, etc is $10k/month.

This family doesn't survive without the company and the same for its employees.

Kimo’s main focus is to keep his employees supported and paid and to help his community in any way he can!

*All funds raised from this fundraiser will be deposited into the Truth Excavation LLC bank account and will be distributed to the Clark family and be used by Truth Excavation to pay it’s employees.

Here are some of Kimo + Family's first-hand accounts of this tragic fire.

August 8th

First thing this morning I get a call that my parent's neighborhood is on fire. Winds are gusting 80mph.

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We had our water truck at the base yard less than a mile away.

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Grabbed our mini dozer and loader and went to work with @maui_county_fire_department. Got it all contained and did a perimeter firebreak.

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Lahaina is crazy right now. No power, streetlights are out, traffic is everywhere, gas stations are closed, power lines are down, and trees and debris are everywhere.

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We helped @maui_county_fire_department contain the start of fire on Tuesday morning up Lahainaluna. We left about 12 and seemed like it was done.

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Got the call at 2pm that it stayed up again. Came in at 4pm and it was starting to get chaotic. Winds were gusting up to 80mph. Full blackouts with dust and smoke for minutes at a time. The wind took down trees and power lines cutting power and phone service.

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We stayed up at Lahainaluna while MFD went down. After we contained the upper neighborhood we headed down to assist.

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The fire burned all around my Baseyard and only got my shop, containers and all our tools. Minimal damage to our office. Every single piece of equipment and truck at the Baseyard has been saved. All our other equipment spread out around Lahaina was spared as well! Thank you Jesus!

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Everyone has been evacuated including my own family. I left about 8:30 to go check on my house. From fighting the fire above, I knew what it was doing and how fast it was spreading.

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Knowing that I had about 30 minutes to get everything I could before my house got burned. I loaded up my truck, helped my neighbors get evacuated, and bailed out.

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All my family is safe. Lots of others did not make it. My heart breaks for friends who lost loved ones.

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My office manager and main driver lost their house and everything. They pretty much left with the clothes on their backs.

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Half my crew stayed helping fight the fires all night. Isi drove the water truck till the next morning single-handedly saving people’s homes.

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The next day we went back to work helping fight fires. Will update again shortly.

August 9th

Text Message from Joey Clark (Kimo’s younger brother) to Noah (close family friend)

August 11th

Update. Still have very limited internet and phone service.

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We have been working with state and county assisting with clean up, roadblocks and other miscellaneous things.

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Yesterday we finished the day and decided to take the weekend off to relax and regroup on Monday.

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I went up to the airport to get phone service and I saw that ANOTHER freakin fire started! I was about a mile away so I drove right to the spot and called the boys.

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There was equipment right next to the fire so I just grabbed the dozer and started making fire breaks. I couldn’t call anyone for permission so I just took it. I think it was Hawaiian dredging.

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Isi was just getting to Maalaea so he turned around. Rob and Smitty came right up and grabbed the water truck. Alan boy was with me and he jumped in an excavator and started working.

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I’m just blown away by my crew that just steps up and responds. They are down for whatever and whenever. I haven’t even paid them for this week yet. Freakin hammers!

More updates soon!