WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — A multimillion-dollar project to build a social hall and office building for the Portuguese Association of Maui and Maui Puerto Rican Association is one step closer to completion thanks to a $250,000 donation from a Maui business owner.
Maui Toyota owner Damien Farias’ donation will go toward the Heritage Hall project to complete construction fundraising. Including Monday’s donation, the two associations have raised nearly $5 million since 2011.
“I have been successful in Maui because of the people of Maui,” said Farias, a former president of the Portuguese association. “I felt we had a good year; the Lord has been good … and I thought why don’t I give it to somebody who really needs it.”
Farias has been heavily involved with the construction of the hall and has helped the Portuguese association and other groups on the island. The office building will be named the Damien J. Farias Center in his honor.
Work on the two-building property located near the old Paia sugar mill is expected to be complete by the end of March. The groups plan to open the hall sometime in May.
The 3,953-square-foot social hall includes kitchen space and an area to host wedding receptions, festivals, conferences, workshops and other events.
“The hall is basically for use by the community,” said Audrey Rocha Reed, secretary of the hall and the Portuguese association. “Paia only has the community center, and it’s a growing area.”
The two-story office building will provide lease space on the first floor for a nonprofit serving Paia and East Maui. The second-floor will house two separate cultural resource centers for the associations, where items from Puerto Rico and Portugal will be on display.
Rocha Reed said the Portuguese center will feature an authentic braguinho, or cavaquinho, a small string instrument that was believed to have been brought to Hawaii by Madeira wood workers in 1879. The instrument is now known as the modern-day ukulele.
The Puerto Rican center will display musical instruments, coffee grinders and an improvised grater — called a guajo — made from tin cans.
