Ten years of helping visitors

Herman Scholtz and his wife were at the beach and she was swimming in the ocean and had trouble getting back to land. Herman swam out and got her, but on the way back in he had a heart attack and died. I left out two things. This was their honeymoon. And it was in Central America. Imagine his bride, not just beset by grief but alone in an unfamiliar place with emergency arrangements to make. This situation was not lost on Scholtz's daughter, Jessica Lani Rich. Today she is head of the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii, which this year marked its first decade of service to Hawaii visitors in distress. The society was founded by the Honolulu Rotary Club, the one that meets in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Rich became its executive director about three years ago. The society is funded to the tune of a nearly quarter million dollars a year by the Hawaii Tourism Authority and gets in-kind assistance of many local businesses. More than 100 people a month are helped by the society, which finds lodgings for visitors who've been robbed, and helps them with emergency arrangements when someone dies or becomes ill while far away from home. Most of the people who work for the society are volunteers. There are offices on four islands.