Kauai leaders honor MaBel Ferreiro-Fujiuchi for decades of service
Kauai leaders marked MaBel Ferreiro-Fujiuchi Day as she retired after more than five decades shaping KEO, which helped steer millions in outside funding to island programs.
Kauai leaders turned MaBel Ferreiro-Fujiuchi’s retirement into a public salute to the institutional memory she carried for more than 50 years at Kauai Economic Opportunity.
About 40 people gathered June 25 at Kilohana Lanai in Līhue, where Mayor Derek S.K. Kawakami proclaimed the day MaBel Ferreiro-Fujiuchi Day. The reception also brought proclamations from the Kauai County Council, the State Legislature and the Mayor’s Office, a sign of how widely her work reached across the island’s nonprofit and civic world.
Ferreiro-Fujiuchi began at KEO in September 1971 as a grantwriter and became chief executive officer in 1992. County Councilmember Arryl Kaneshiro said she was responsible for bringing more than $200 million to Kauai, a scale that reflects how much the island’s social-service network has depended on her ability to secure outside funding.
That history matters now because KEO remains a central provider for residents who need help with mediation, peer mediation, home-delivered meals, elderly food security and financial assistance. The organization says it was founded March 16, 1965, as a local community action program under the Office of Economic Opportunity, and it marked 60 years on Kauai in 2025. Ferreiro-Fujiuchi’s exit closes a direct link to that founding era and to the grantwriting, program-building and crisis work that kept the agency moving through changing county needs.
Her influence also extended beyond KEO. The Zonta Club of Kauai identified her as its longtime Scholarship Committee chair, and the club distributed $26,000 in scholarships in 2026. That role connected her to students and families at a time when education costs continue to squeeze local households.
Ferreiro-Fujiuchi remained visible in recent island efforts as well. In March 2024, she spoke as KEO expanded Maui wildfire relief efforts on Kauai, showing that her leadership was still tied to emergency response and community support shortly before retirement.
Lauree Fujiuchi flew in from Las Vegas for the reception, joining Brian Fujiuchi and others who came to honor a career that helped shape how Kauai delivers aid, secures funding and keeps its most vulnerable residents connected to services.
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