Among its many health care programs for underserved communities in the Pacific, Aloha Medical Mission runs Hawaii’s only free dental clinic, providing care for about 120 patients a month who lack insurance or other means to pay.
But when the program itself needs some free help, it turns to handyman Victor Messier.
For little more than the pleasure of helping out, Messier will step up to "fix anything," Susan Hughes, executive director of Aloha Medical Mission, wrote in a letter to the Star-Advertiser nominating Messier as her Hero Next Door. "He has changed windows, doors, locks, installed shelves, replaced ceilings, electrical, plumbing."
Messier said he has been helping out "all my life."
"If I have an opportunity to lend a hand, I want to do that," he said. "And as it lucked out, this whole Aloha Medical Mission is the best thing to get on board with, in terms of the program, the aloha. … It’s just been a really fun time, so that’s what I do."
Messier, 72 ("going on 14," he said), got involved with Aloha Medical Mission through Lynn Watanabe, a volunteer with the program. Her son is married to his stepdaughter and her daughter is a neighbor whose home Messier had helped renovate. Watanabe knew the mission needed help keeping things running — the facility is housed in Palama Settlement, a building that dates to the 1920s — and asked Messier to lend a hand.
It might seem unusual that Messier would be so eager to take on this kind of work. He is a former faculty member of the University of New Hampshire and had a part-time position at the University of Hawaii as well, and he has no formal training in carpentry or other construction skills.
But his academic field was in human development, which encompassed "children and families, social work," he said. "That’s where the action is. That’s where people are."
His hardscrabble upbringing in the prairies of Alberta, Canada, and later in Alaska taught him the spiritual satisfaction of hard, physical work as well as the sense of creativity that it involves.
"If you give yourself permission to make mistakes, you can do anything," he said.
He came to Hawaii in the 1970s to build a home on Hawaii island for a woman whom he met "for 10 minutes" and immediately decided to "court." He would eventually marry her and come to live in Hawaii permanently in 1976.
"When I first came here, I needed a job, and the first thing was I could be a handyman," he said. "That’s how I built up my skills over time. Just doing everything and anything to make a buck in those days."
He goes to Aloha Medical Mission every Friday and otherwise will come at a moment’s notice if needed.
"I’m willing to do anything to make that place, to make the staff do their job with more pleasure," he said. He will even pay for whatever construction materials if he has the money, or provide them from his supplies if he has them.
His most complicated job at the facility sounds simple: "turning and flipping" a door. But it took some expertise to do the job right.
"If you know anything about renovations, nothing is ever square anymore," Messier said. "That was one thing that needed a guess, and I was able to pull that one off. … But basically it’s doors and sinks and toilets and paintings and cupboards, that kind of stuff, because that’s all that’s there."
Hughes said Messier’s work has been invaluable.
"He comes in once or twice a week, because he knows what kind of stuff we need and he’s great fun," he said. "He just kind of keeps us rolling along."
Messier said it is fulfilling to contribute to an institution that provides such an important service to the underprivileged.
"It’s the company of the good," he said of Aloha Medical Mission. "The way they treat the patients there, they come in and they don’t have anything. So it’s really important that they come in and it’s painted and it’s clean and they’re well thought of. The doctors and the attendants are just great. It’s a good fit."
