The Pacific Tsunami Museum, which has fallen on financial hard times, received some good news to start its new year.
The Olson Trust, which carries out the vision of its founder, the late Hilo businessman and philanthropist Ed Olson, has come forward with a $200,000 contribution to the nonprofit museum.
“We’ve donated $100,000; we’ve got another $100,000 in process,” Paul Alston, an attorney and trustee told the Tribune-Herald Friday. “And we’re going to challenge the big companies in Hilo to match our contribution in the aggregate. We’re going to ask for significant amounts so we can get the museum up and stabilized and moving forward.”
“The Olson Trust has been an absolute godsend for us, and they’re stepping up again,” added Cindi Preller, the museum’s director.
Alston, his wife Tanya — a survivor of the May 23, 1960, tsunami that killed 61 people in Hilo and leveled much of the town’s waterfront — and Preller met with Big Island Mayor Kimo Alameda on Monday.
“He’s pledged his support, and we’re going to have an investor’s luncheon at the end of the month,” said Preller.
Alston also said the meeting with the new mayor “went very well.”
“He expressed a great deal of interest in the welfare and future of the museum and support for getting the community behind restoring its financial stability and the stability of the institution and the physical plant that’s there,” Alston said. “Related to that, we received a $25,000 commitment from Meadow Gold Dairies and a promise to help with working on rebuilding the facility, because they’ve got an affiliate that builds commercial air conditioning systems.”
Alston said he’s pleased that Meadow Gold’s CEO Bahman Sadeghi also sees value in investing in the museum — which holds a significant piece of Hilo’s history in its exhibits and archives.
“When I reached out to him Monday and Tuesday morning, I got an email of support, and that’s the kind of support I’m hoping to get from other companies — especially those with ties to Shinmachi and the history of Hilo,” he said.
It’s likely more than mere coincidence that Alston reached out to Sadeghi. Tanya Alston’s father, David Furtado, owned Fairview Dairy, which became Excelsior Dairy — and was an economic casualty of the 1960 tsunami.
“The processing plant was wiped out in the tidal wave and it went from processing milk to a concrete slab,” Alston said. “It was a disaster for her family. Her father died five years later and she would say it was from the trauma of losing his business. He was an orphan who built the business up and was wiped out.”
Alston said the processing plant was located where the Hilo Bayfront soccer fields are now, and his wife, then 16, lived on the family’s dairy farm in Piihonua, above Hilo town near Boiling Pots.
“She was home alone and got a call, and went down to the Hongwanji and climbed up at sunrise to see,” he said. “She said she immediately became an adult because she saw dead bodies taken out of buildings.
“Her dad was at a dairymen’s conference in Chicago and her mom was on Oahu and she had to make the report to the family, so it was really bad.”
It’s stories such as Tanya Alston’s that the museum tells “to educate and save lives,” Preller said.
The museum, which recently closed its doors, now is open Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., operated by volunteer docents.
Preller and Associate Director Josh Bell, who had been laid off, are now back on salary and at this point, the museum’s only paid staff.
“We have grants to pay an outreach coordinator so we can continue our efforts with the schools and the kids,” Preller said.
Preller said she’s looking to “revitalize” the museum.
“I’m looking for a whole new board. And I need to find somebody with webmaster skills so we can update the website,” she said. “I’m looking to attract a new generation of folks to help us re-imagine and recreate ourselves.
“The Pacific Tsunami Museum used to host these wonderful tsunami survivors talk-story events. We are planning to do a grand reunion of tsunami survivors and talk-story around Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving this year will be 50 years since the 1975 Halape tsunami. I’m putting out a call to tsunami survivors and their families, as well, because they’re a part of the ‘ohana.”
Alston said the reason the Olson Trust is stepping forward and challenging others to do so “is because of Ed’s longtime commitment to the islands.”
“We’re looking to extend Ed’s legacy of giving to the community,” he said. “And I’m very lucky to be in the position of being charged to carry out his wishes.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
