The fire raced through Lahaina so fast that it destroyed more than 2,200 buildings, most of them homes. It left more than 7,000 people without their 1 .
As the fire was 2 nearer that afternoon, Kalyn Lepre, a 36-year-old designer, grabbed her wallet and drove out of town. She lost everything else in her house including seven surfboards. Lepre surfed almost every day; surfing was a source of 3 and a means to maintain her 4 health. Seeing her surfboards reduced to a pile of fibers was5 .
Jud Lau shared the feeling. The 53-year-old Maui native has been 6 the waves since he was a teenager and building surfboards for the last 15 years. "Surfing is a healing thing for surfers—getting in the 7 , connecting to Mother Nature. A surfboard is part of your whole being — 8 in Hawaii, where surfing 9 ,"he says.
So he realized he could help the surfers who had lost their boards. Lau started by connecting people who wanted to 10 extra boards. Friends in California collected another boards and shipped them to Lau for him to give them away.
But many surfers, like Lepre, used custom(定制的) boards designed to 11 their size or the type of waves they ride. So Lau raised cash donations to cover the cost of 12 for making custom boards and contributed his labor.
Lepre 13 him what she'd lost, and Lau carefully built it in his studio. It's a high-performance board with a sunset fading from yellow to orange.
"I cried when I saw it," says Lepre, emotion 14 in her voice. "Just getting back in the water was one of the most powerful 15 of my life. Jud gifted me back mental healing as well as physical pleasure."
