Karen M. Holt,
Executive Director

P.O. Box 1046
Kaunakaki, HI 96748

The Moloka‘i Community Service Council (MCSC) was founded in 1974 as a non-profit, tax-exempt umbrella for community-based projects on the island of Moloka‘i. Its mission is: To build a healthy community by providing and sponsoring non-profit human services, charitable programs and community development projects.

In its earliest years, MCSC was an all-volunteer organization with a board of directors providing administrative and fiscal oversight for pass-through funding. Today, MCSC is headed by an attorney executive director. It employs a staff of twenty and administers a variety of community programs with an annual budget of more than $1 million.

In 1998, MCSC coordinated and prepared the island's application for a federal Enterprise Community designation. Moloka‘i won designation as one of just 20 new rural enterprise communities nationwide.

MCSC currently provides direct services for youth and families, agricultural entrepreneurs, housing needs for the disabled, and the island's annual Friendly Isle United Fund fundraising campaign and grants program. Since its establishment in 1974, many other projects have been developed and incubated under MCSC's umbrella. Examples include the Moloka‘i READS Literacy Program, Hale Ho'okupa'a Substance Abuse Treatment, Mediation Services of Moloka‘i, the Ka Moloka‘i Makahiki annual cultural festival, and the Moloka‘i Enterprise Community. These efforts have resulted in the expansion of community facilities and the creation of dozens of permanent jobs.

As of the 2000 Census, Moloka‘i's population was 7,400, 64% of whom are Native Hawaiians. The island has a history of high unemployment rates and dependence on off-shore businesses to vitalize its local economy. Over the past decade, however, unemployment rates have dropped by more than two-thirds as the community has begun to take charge of its own economic destiny.

The CDC’s latest project is considerably larger than anything they have attempted previously. MCSC is leading a coalition of island residents and civic and cultural leaders in an effort to buy out the island's largest landowner, Moloka‘i Ranch. The Ranch property occupies most of the western third of the island. The Ranch is a subsidiary of a Hong Kong investment company that acquired the property in 2005 as an underdeveloped asset. The investors envisioned the island as a “blank slate” for intensive additional development. However, they were unaware of Moloka‘i’s shortage of potable water. Nor did they realize that Native Hawaiians would demand recognition and protection of the island's culture and natural resources. Today, local community ownership of the Ranch lands is seen as the only way to protect what many call "The Last Hawaiian Island."

To learn more about the Moloka'i Community Service Council, visit www.molokai.org.