About Us

Hands that form a lifeline for the community.

Literally used to share the bounties of the sea and land, to build a unique heritage, and to communicate both language and emotion, hands have always played a central role in Hawai'i's society. Helping Hands Hawai'i embodies that tradition, focusing on the concept of a community sustained by the combined efforts and interaction of its individual members.

This spirit of ohana, or family, is at the heart of Helping Hands Hawai'i's existence; the basic building block of its foundation. Incorporated in 1974, Helping Hands Hawai'i evolved from the establishment of the Honolulu Council of Social Agencies' Volunteer Placement Bureau in 1941. With a mission to connect individuals, families, and organizations with available resources, both human and material, Helping Hands Hawai'i continues to provide a vital lifeline for the community, helping its members to help one another.

One of the most cost-efficient and effective non-profit agencies in the State, Helping Hands Hawai'i acts as a liaison between all sectors of the community,matching human need to the delivery of human services. Through its unique management style, Helping Hands Hawai'i is able to take
the fullest possible advantage of the community's rich resources.

Hands that link us all together.

Person to person and heart to heart, Helping Hands Hawai'i is the link that connects us all. Dedicated to bringing people together in service to Hawai'i's community at large, Helping Hands Hawai'i administers a group of interrelated programs that provide a comprehensive approach to solving a myriad of social problems.

By improving and facilitating the delivery of human services, Helping Hands Hawai'i increases self-sufficiency among Hawai'i's communities, thus strengthening its members and, in turn, the communities themselves. In so doing, the agency acts as a catalyst for growth and achievement that has a positive effect on the very fabric of life in the islands.

Hands that offer comfort, relief and promise.

Through its collaborative efforts, Helping Hands Hawai'i coordinates a core of specialized services that fulfill a continuum of care. Separately, these programs represent distinct areas of need. Together, they work in concert to help all of Hawai'i realize its fullest potential in a rapidly evolving, increasingly global society.

In addition, Helping Hands Hawai'i facilitates numerous other projects, including the Honolulu Advertiser's Christmas Fund, the Honolulu Star Bulletin's Good Neighbor Fund, the Adopt-a-Family Program, and the Baby Layette Project which assists new mothers by providing the basic items for a newborn baby.

Hands that shape the quality of life.

For more than 250,000 families and individuals each year, Helping Hands Hawai'i means the difference between hope and despair, between sickness and health, between stagnation and growth. For them, Helping Hands Hawai'i defines a new quality of life: a chance to overcome the obstacles that block the way towards meeting their full potential.

The dynamic empowering services provided by Helping Hands Hawai'i are even more remarkable for the ways in which they bring the people of Hawai'i and its resources to bear on the problems that affect our community as a whole. For our shared physical, emotional, and economic well-being rests on the collective welfare of each of our families, friends, and neighbors. By bettering the quality of life for those in need, Helping Hands Hawai'i betters the quality of life for us all.

Hands that hold the future.

In partnership with the people of Hawai'i, Helping Hands Hawai'i holds the promise of the future. For the people, of the people, and by the people, Helping Hands Hawai'i faces that future with optimism and determination. Building on the strengths of our past accomplishments over more than a quarter of a century, we welcome this new millennium and the exciting opportunities it has to offer.

As a non-profit organization, the revenues that support Helping Hands Hawai'i come from a variety of sources. In addition to contracts with state agencies, grants from local and national government, and the Aloha United Way, private, corporate and foundation gifts play a significant role in our ongoing success. At the heart of charitable giving for Helping Hands Hawai'i are the more than 5,000 individual donors that represent a strong grassroots across the community. In this way, the hands that mold the future of Hawai'i are our own. It is a responsibility we gladly share, an ideal we passionately embrace.