{"id":115378,"date":"2020-04-07T13:59:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T23:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=115378"},"modified":"2024-03-15T15:06:49","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T01:06:49","slug":"uh-student-relief-fund-santos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/04\/07\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos\/","title":{"rendered":"Great grandmother needs urgent relief for extended family"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_95976\"  width=\"676\" height=\"676\"  data-origwidth=\"676\" data-origheight=\"676\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S08xwh-9YWQ?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"Great grandmother needs urgent relief for extended family\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n<p>Going to school at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wcc.hawaii.edu\/\">Windward Community College<\/a> before COVID-19 was challenging enough for <strong>Lynette Santos<\/strong>. The 57-year-old grandmother of 13 and great grandmother to four had a home bursting at the seams and had already dealt with tragedy in her close-knit <span aria-label=\"ohana.\">&#699;ohana.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_115385\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-115385\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-2.jpg\" alt=\"two people wearing masks\" width=\"250\" class=\"size-full wp-image-115385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-2.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-2-130x130.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-115385\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grandson Elton Naki Jr. was in a coma for months after an accident in 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Santos lives in low-income public housing in <span aria-label=\"Kaneohe\">K&#257;ne&#699;ohe<\/span> with her husband, daughter Ona Naki and her husband and their two children, and a granddaughter and her two children.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, during his senior year of high school, Ona\u2019s son Elton Naki Jr. fell out of a truck in <span aria-label=\"Kaneohe\">K&#257;ne&#699;ohe<\/span> and ended up in a coma for months, on life support.<\/p>\n<p>Santos enrolled at Windward <abbr title=\"Community College\">CC<\/abbr> three years ago. After urging every one of her grandchildren to go to college, she decided it was time to do it for herself. She was working on her associate\u2019s degree, with dreams of opening up a Christian store in her K&#257;neohe community, when the virus hit.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhfoundation.org\/give\/giving-opportunity\/covid-19\">Support the <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> Student Relief fund and COVID-19 research<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Income loss<\/h2>\n<p>Her husband George Santos Jr. lost his job as a custodian at Kalaheo High School on March 17. Lynette Santos went from being on the Windward CC campus much of the day to being at home with her whole extended household. Santos said it forced their family to go from being self-sufficient to asking for help.<\/p>\n<p>Windward <abbr>CC<\/abbr> helped her to sign up for assistance for food, transportation, books and other expenses through a workforce education and training program called <abbr>HINET<\/abbr>, which stands for <a href=\"https:\/\/hinethawaii.org\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> Nutrition Employment and Training<\/a>. <abbr>HINET<\/abbr> has helped with money for food, but it\u2019s not enough to support the entire extended family. Without George\u2019s income, Santos says they need the help from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhfoundation.org\/give\/giving-opportunity\/covid-19\"><abbr>糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> Foundation\u2019s Urgent Student Relief Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Related <em><abbr>糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> News<\/em> story: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2019\/02\/10\/hinet-helps-hungry-students-succeed\/\">High-impact <abbr>HINET<\/abbr> helps hungry students succeed<\/a>, February 10, 2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Santos said she copes by asking herself, &ldquo;What if this is the last day on Earth?&rdquo; Then tells herself that things are going to get better and that, because her extended family depends upon her, she &ldquo;can\u2019t fail now.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Family on the front lines<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_115384\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-115384\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Naki and two people in covid testing tent\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-115384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki-630x353.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-naki.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-115384\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Santos\u2019 daughter Ona Naki, who lives with her, is working on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The faith-filled woman also prays for daughter Ona who is now on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis, working with Premier Medical Group, which is doing testing for the virus at multiple public sites every week. &ldquo;He\u2019s my guidance. He\u2019s my everything,&rdquo; she says of God.<\/p>\n<p>These days, she tries to keep up with her online classes amidst a house full of people. She entertains the <span aria-label=\"ohana,\">&#699;ohana,<\/span> especially the children, by playing bible games and bingo, then goes on to her computer when she can.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s worried how their large, loving household will get by with only her social security payments and Ona\u2019s income as a medical assistant. That\u2019s why this proud, independent woman agreed to share her story, in the hopes that others will understand that it is ok to ask for help. &ldquo;We are in this together as a family, our <span aria-label=\"ohana,&rdquo;\">&#699;ohana,&rdquo;<\/span> Santos said.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;By Kelli Trifonovitch<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_115397\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-115397\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-family-2.jpg\" alt=\"Santos family photo\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-115397\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-family-2.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-family-2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/uh-student-relief-fund-santos-family-2-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-115397\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Windward <abbr>CC<\/abbr> student Lynette Santos (with pink flower) has 13 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Windward <abbr>CC<\/abbr> student with large family says she can\u2019t afford to fail now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,12],"tags":[1411,1416,1513,71,319,56,66,1626],"class_list":["post-115378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-video","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-uh-helps","tag-hinet","tag-uh-community-colleges","tag-uh-foundation","tag-video-2","tag-windward-community-college","tag-women-of-uh","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115378"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124587,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115378\/revisions\/124587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}