ENCINITAS — The Grauer School, an independent school in Encinitas, has donated 200 uniform shirts and pairs of socks to students at its sister school in Maui following the August fires.
Maui Preparatory Academy, also known as Maui Prep, is a preschool through 12th grade private school located in West Maui. When the fires destroyed the city of Lahaina in August, over 3,000 students were displaced.
The school responded by turning into a Red Cross Evacuation Center rather than opening the school as planned for the year. Currently, Maui Prep is the only functioning school in West Maui and have opened their doors to students regardless of their ability to pay tuition, increasing its usual 270-student enrollment to over 400.
“After the fires, Maui Prep administrators and teachers are doing their best to educate as many students as possible, providing not only education but stability for students who have undergone tremendous trauma,” said Dana Abplanalp-Diggs, head of The Grauer School. “We have been in communication with Maui Prep about how we could help our sister school by providing items they really needed. Their Head of School, Dr. Miguel Solis, shared that their students needed logoed t-shirts to serve as uniforms as they start the school year and socks, so our Grauer community came together to help.”
Jessi Brown, humanitarian service coordinator for The Grauer School, worked with Maui Prep’s communications team to secure their logo, and The Grauer School’s marketing team ordered logoed t-shirts for their students. Staff and parents also donated socks as requested, and the students handwrote encouraging letters to their peers at Maui Prep. All of the items were distributed to the students during Maui Prep’s back-to-school night.
“Mahalo to The Grauer School in Encinitas, California, for sending us t-shirts with our Maui Prep logo,” said Miguel Solis, head of Maui Preparatory Academy. “We very much appreciate their support.”
The Grauer School established a sister school partnership with Maui Prep in 2010 through founder Stuart Grauer and the DiNoto family.
“When the DiNoto family moved to San Diego from Maui in 2010 and their son started attending The Grauer School, they were struck by the similarities between Grauer and Maui Prep. Tom DiNoto was one of the founders of Maui Prep, and he took a big interest in the advances at The Grauer School,” Grauer said. “DiNoto suggested a sister school partnership, and we set up a visit to Maui Prep. The synergy was immediate with Maui Prep’s Head of School, George Baker, who later participated in a reciprocal visit to The Grauer School. It is wonderful that we could activate this sister school arrangement to assist with the urgent need caused by this natural disaster.”
Local community members can also help by donating to a sponsored student or disaster relief efforts via Venmo to @Maui-Prep or online via www.mauiprep.org/giving.
