How did Hele Mua use your donations in 2025?
Here at Hele Mua, we want to be 100% clear where all of the donation money goes. We summarized your donations and wanted to share with you how your money made an impact.
Let’s break down each of these categories.
Program equipment & Event materials: 41% ($2586.54)
This category includes the tools and supplies needed to host our cleanups and educational stations. Costs included maintaining our sifters, purchasing tables and benches, microplastic separation tools such as salad spinners, and printing educational signage. Throughout 2025, we prioritized improving equipment safety and enhancing the interactive experience of our events.
Our original Huli Sifter gave us a lot of splinters, and did not work well with wet sand.
Our updated Huli Sifter was sanded and painted to prevent splinters, and safety measures were implemented in both openings of the tube.
Insurance: 40.5% ($2552.68)
While it may not be the most exciting expense, it is essential for hosting safe and responsible community events. Insurance protects volunteers and our organization in case of unexpected injuries, and it is often required by parks, schools, and partner organizations before events can take place. This coverage ensures we can continue organizing cleanups and educational activities for the community.
For the safety of all our staff and the students we are fortunate enough to host, we for sure want to have an insurance plan!
Meals: 10.4% ($653.69)
Everyone involved in leading Hele Mua, such as our board members and operational team, currently does not receive pay. These meals are provided during quarterly meetings as a small way to support and thank the team that helps plan and operate our events.
Our operations team not only volunteer their hours on the beach clean up days, but they also work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure we can grow as a non-profit, all out of love for the environment!
Basic operations: 7.8% ($490.79)
This category includes running our website, domain, and email.
Client/outreach meetings: 0.4% ($24.80)
As we continue growing Hele Mua’s impact, we regularly meet with organizations and potential partners to discuss collaboration opportunities. During these meetings, we typically cover the cost of a coffee as a small gesture of appreciation for their time and willingness to explore ways to work together.
What’s Next?
In 2026, we plan to continue expanding Hele Mua’s footprint and reaching a wider audience. We anticipate investing in additional equipment and upgrades to support our growing events. One of our biggest priorities is improving our storage and transportation system. Currently, it takes hours to pack our personal vehicles (most of which are sedans) with event equipment before each cleanup. This process is inefficient and requires multiple cars to transport everything. As Hele Mua continues to grow, our storage is also becoming limited to our backyards and balconies, leaving little room for additional equipment. To address these challenges, we are exploring the purchase of a trailer, which would allow us to store and transport our equipment more efficiently. This will likely be our largest investment in 2026.
