About the Network
Rooted Here. Connected by Community.
The Red Road Resilience Network (RRRN) is a community-led nonprofit connecting people, places, skills, and resources throughout Puna Makai—because we grow resilience through community connection.
We believe resilience begins long before an emergency. It grows when neighbors know one another, when knowledge and resources are shared, when people have opportunities to learn and gather, and when communities have strong relationships they can rely on in times of need.
Through community gatherings, arts and cultural events, shared meals, workshops, preparedness efforts, and collaborative planning, RRRN creates opportunities for people to connect and strengthen the collective capacity of our communities.
Why Resilience Matters Here
Our communities are geographically spread out and relatively remote from many of the services and resources centered elsewhere on Hawaiʻi Island. Volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tropical storms, earthquakes, wildfires, flooding, power and communication disruptions, and the isolation that can follow a major event are part of the reality of living here.
Depending on the disaster, it may take up to 72 hours for first responders to reach our community. For the safety of our community, we must be prepared to be our own Immediate Responders.
To do that, we need to know our community—our skills, our resources, and our vulnerabilities—as well as we can.
Our Story
The Red Road Resilience Network builds upon a long tradition of neighbors organizing to care for the people and places of Puna Makai.
One important root is KAPONO, an early community-directed Red Road nonprofit. Its mission brought residents together to protect and enhance the health, heritage, safety, and quality of life of Lower Puna. KAPONO coordinated community voices, gathered and shared information, supported the Red Road Scenic Byway, protected the environment and historical sites, and celebrated community-led initiatives.
That same spirit continued through years of volunteer service, community organizing, fundraising, and shared efforts to care for our Red Road corridor—its communities, its history, and its unique elemental beauty. Over the past five years, our community resilience work was further nurtured through early support and incubation by Hawaiʻi’s Volcano Circus (HVC)/SPACE, together with training, guidance, and encouragement from Vibrant Hawaiʻi and its vision of a coordinated network of resilience hubs across the island.
Through these relationships, community members assessed local needs and capacities, participated in resilience trainings, and developed plans for greater preparedness and connection. As the work grew, so did the vision. What began with hub-based efforts gradually expanded into a wider network of neighborhoods, volunteers, community spaces, and organizations working together across Puna Makai.
Honoring these roots, we listened closely to the needs of our unique area and responded to Vibrant Hawaiʻi’s encouragement to grow—becoming more organized, collaborative, and better resourced to serve our people and care for our place.
We recognized the need for a regional network in which every Red Road community would have a voice in shaping preparedness planning and resilience coordination. Each neighborhood holds its own strengths, relationships, vulnerabilities, and needs. Connecting these communities allows us to build resilience in everyday life and, during emergencies, coordinate response and relief efforts that direct people and resources where they are needed most.
Pōhaku Pelemaka carries important elements of KAPONO’s stewardship tradition forward through its commitment to Native Hawaiian traditions and concerns, protection of the Red Road corridor, and collaboration with other community organizations.
As RRRN’s fiscal sponsor, Pōhaku Pelemaka enabled us to receive funding through the County of Hawaiʻi’s Kīlauea Recovery Grant Program and expand our ability to serve the region through the Red Road Resilience Outreach Project and All-Communities Disaster Initiative. We are also working together to revise the 2015 Red Road Corridor Management Plan, created through the efforts of KAPONO members and other Red Road community leaders.
RRRN became an independent nonprofit to give this growing regional work a dedicated organizational home—one focused on strengthening relationships, preparedness, local capacity, and collaboration among our Lower Puna communities, from Kalapana to Kapoho.
Today, we envision a resilient Red Road supported by many strong, connected people and places. Pōhaku Pelemaka, Uncle Robert’s, SPACE, Kapoho Market, and other community hubs, organizations, cultural practitioners, volunteers, neighborhoods, and residents are all important parts of this resilience landscape.
We are grateful for the many people and partnerships that helped this work take root. We intend to nourish those roots and help resilience grow where it is needed most. Just as the reopening of the road reconnects communities long separated, we see an opportunity to renew connections throughout Puna Makai—strengthening our collective capacity to care for our people, protect this remarkable place, and meet the future together.
Connecting the Red Road
The Red Road is not one neighborhood. It is a collection of communities, organizations, gathering places, farms, families, artists, cultural practitioners, educators, healers, tradespeople, volunteers, and neighbors spread across Puna Makai.
RRRN helps weave those pieces together.
We create opportunities for neighbors to meet, organizations to collaborate, people to share what they know, and communities to identify both the resources they have and the resources they need.
Sometimes that looks like a community meal or an art gathering. Sometimes it is a preparedness workshop, a skills training, a neighborhood conversation, or people coming together after a storm.
Each creates another connection.
Over time, those connections become a stronger community network—one that can support everyday wellbeing as well as preparedness, response, and recovery.
Our Values
Community-Led
The people who live here hold tremendous knowledge about their communities. We listen first, invite participation, and build from the strengths, ideas, and capacities already present in Puna Makai.
Place-Based
Our work grows from this particular place—its communities, history, culture, landscape, opportunities, and challenges. We seek to care for the relationships between people and place and to honor our responsibility to the ʻāina that sustains us.
Relational
Strong communities are built through relationships. We create spaces for people to know one another, work alongside one another, share knowledge, and develop trust before that trust is needed in a crisis.
Collaborative
No single organization can create community resilience. We work alongside residents, community groups, nonprofits, businesses, cultural practitioners, educators, emergency-response partners, and gathering places throughout the region.
Inclusive
There are many ways to belong and contribute. We strive to create welcoming opportunities for people of different ages, backgrounds, abilities, experiences, and levels of involvement to participate in strengthening our community.
More Than Emergency Preparedness
Preparedness is an important part of our work, but resilience is bigger than disaster response.
- It is the neighbor you already know before the power goes out.
- It is knowing who has a chainsaw, who knows first aid, who can cook for a crew, who may need a wellness check, and where people can gather.
- It is sharing food, passing along knowledge, creating art, caring for ʻāina, learning practical skills, and creating reasons for people to come together during blue-sky days.
Those everyday connections create the foundation we draw upon when something happens.
Meet the Team
Meet the people helping RRRN connect neighbors, strengthen local relationships, and grow community resilience across Puna Makai.
Team profiles and photos are coming soon.
Partners & Supporters
Community resilience is collaborative by nature.
RRRN works alongside community organizations, gathering places, nonprofits, educators, cultural practitioners, emergency-preparedness partners, funders, and neighbors who share a commitment to a connected and resilient Puna Makai.
We are grateful for the many people and organizations whose knowledge, spaces, resources, time, and relationships make this work possible.