Friends of the Library of Hawaii
Promoting and supporting Hawai‘i's public libraries
We are excited to announce the return of our Holiday Market at the Hawaiʻi State Library! This year, the Holiday Market will take place on Saturday, November 29 from 4:00-9:00pm, and it will coincide with the opening night of the Honolulu City Lights.
We invite food and craft vendors to be part of our Holiday Market! For more info, please see our Vendor Application. Interested vendors should submit an application by October 3, 2025.
We are excited to announce our Art & Collectibles Pop-up at Ward Centre, across Village Books and Music. The Art & Collectible Pop-up will run September 6 through October 26, and it will be open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10am – 4pm. It will be closed on Mondays.
The pop-up will feature more than 200 pieces of art, including paintings, prints, photographs, textiles, ceramics and wooden pieces. It will also be stocked with collectibles, including model boat, plane, and car sets, vintage LIFE magazines, glass bottles, and dolls, oversized books, and more.
We’re especially excited to open this store and showcase our art collection, because we weren’t able to bring this inventory to our Annual Sale in July, and we appreciate Ward Village for allowing us to host this pop-up. New items will be added throughout the pop-up, so we recommend coming back often to check out what’s new.
The Art & Collectibles Pop-up, like our book sales, is a fundraiser for Hawaiʻi’s 51 public libraries. Proceeds from the pop-up support engaging and educational programming at your public library. We hope to see you there!
This summer, over 23,400 Hawaiʻi residents joined the 2025 Summer Reading Challenge! Themed “E Heluhelu Kākou: Mele”, this year’s challenge sang the praises of Hawai‘i’s rich musical heritage, and readers hit every note! Just look at these stats:
Congratulations to this year’s Grand Prize Drawing Winner, Cindy Yoshida! This was Cindy’s first time participating in the Summer Reading Challenge, and the most impactful book she read this summer was a book about Alzheimer’s Disease.
We were thrilled to celebrate with Cindy at her “home” library, Mililani Public Library, as she received her vouchers for four round-trip tickets on Alaska Airlines.
We are excited to once again be part of Give Aloha, Foodland’s Annual Community Matching Gifts program! This program runs throughout the month of September at all Foodland, Sack N Save, and Foodland Farms stores statewide.
Here’s how you can participate and support Friends of the Library of Hawaiʻi:
A portion of donations from enrolled Maikaʻi Members will be matched by Foodland!
You can also support the Give Aloha matching gift by:
The matching gift will be shared among all participating nonprofits.
We will receive all donations plus our matching gift in October.
Please join us for the 4th annual Read Aloud Series at the Ward Center Courtyard! Little ones can listen to live children’s book readings from local authors and librarians. You can also snap a photo in front of the photo wall, purchase books from our participating partners, and enjoy light snacks and beverages (while supplies last).
Mahalo to our partners: Ward Village, Hawaiʻi Library Association, SCBWI Hawaiʻi, Nā Mea Hawaiʻi, Logos Bookstore of Hawaiʻi, and Selfmade Something.