We islanders are a sentimental bunch who wear our hearts — and memories — on our sleeves … and across our chests and backs on T-shirts. So when Hawaiian Commercial &Sugar Co. sounded the death knell for the state’s last sugar plantation in January, it didn’t take long for T-shirt designers to get busy.
Two Maui entrepreneurs producing end-of-sugar T-shirts say their efforts are a show of solidarity with the 675 workers who are losing their jobs.
“No one cared about the employees who were going to be jobless, and we wanted to show love and respect toward those who we feel are our people,” said Jojo Dickson, 26, who owns Most HI Clothing Supply with wife, Amber. (“Our name reflects the two things we love most: God and Hawaii,” Dickson said.)
The Baldwin High School graduate, who played a brief stint in the NFL, said his wife’s family includes former sugar workers. “It allowed them to make something of themselves. It’s been such a blessing for so many,” he said.
For its T-shirt, Most HI — best known for its Myna Bird Mob brand — co-opted the familiar HC&S logo, replacing the plantation’s acronym with its own. The back of the shirt sports an image of a factory gear wheel and a silhouette of the Puunene mill ($25 at mosthiclothing.com).
“We wanted something recognizable, easy to see, something significant,” Dickson said.
Hard Heads Hawaii, another T-shirt company, reproduced a photo of the mill set against the West Maui Mountains on the front of its T-shirt; on the back it says, “Our Roots Run Deep” ($25.99). Hard Heads also resurrected an older design that inserts “HHH” into the pink-and-blue C&H sugar logo, with a machete on the flip side ($25.99 for T-shirt, $29.99 for hat).
Hard Heads’ Nate Tiu, 31, said his grandparents worked for HC&S, and he watched his uncle, a machine operator with a daughter in
college, come home after a meeting at the mill in which employees learned their fate. Later, at his grandmother’s house, they began looking at old family photos.
“It was really heartfelt; everybody started reminiscing about the mill and how it’s been in our family all this time, and I really wanted to do something to give back to the people,” he said.
A portion of the sales from the Hard Heads merchandise will be donated to a family affected by the plantation shutdown. For more information on the giveaway or to buy merchandise, visit Headquarters Maui at the Maui Mall, 70 E. Kaahumanu Ave., Kahului, call 808-268-0867 or visit hardheadshawaii.com.
Displaced sugar workers will also benefit from the sale of hats, T-shirts and other merchandise to be sold by A Hui Hou, a newly formed group of Maui residents headed by former Maui County Councilwoman Alice Lee. A Hui Hou is partnering with Maui United Way to raise $300,000 to provide emergency relief to displaced HC&S workers in need.
“It’s a labor of love to help those who have to go through this pretty awful ordeal, and another way to hang on to the memories we have,” Lee said.
The group will be selling T-shirts ($20), hats ($20), magnets ($10) and stickers ($5) with a design featuring sugar cane inside an outline of the island and the A Hui Hou logo encircled by the words “Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar, 1870-2016.” The artwork was courtesy Sae Designs.
The group’s name — translated as “until we meet again” — is meant as a fond farewell to Maui’s sugar industry, Lee said, but also looks forward to what many hope will be a new era of diversified agriculture on former sugar cane lands.
Money collected from A Hui Hou fundraising will be distributed by Maui United Way. Supporters also can make direct tax-deductible donations to A Hui Hou via MUW. Lee said the merchandise should be available by the end of the month at various banks, credit unions and other outlets; check mauiunitedway.org for details.
