Saturday Briefing

By Cheryl Minato

The annual Made in Hawaii Festival is the largest event of its kind in Hawaii. In its 14th year, the festival has become even bigger, with nearly 500 exhibitors displaying and selling their goods and wares, all grown and made locally here in the islands. Last weekend, more than 35,000 kama‘aina and visitors alike browsed the many booths in the Blaisdell Arena and Exhibition Hall sampling and purchasing products you don’t get to see all the time, such as handmade jewelry from the north shore of Oahu; Koa woodcrafts from the Big Island; paintings and sculptures from the island of Kauai; bread from the island of Molokai; jams and jellies and marinating and dipping sauces from upcountry Maui; and much, much more!

OHANA Hotels & Resorts has been a participating sponsor of the Made in Hawaii Festival for six years. OHANA is the only hotel company that has a booth at the festival, where we promote Outrigger and OHANA by distributing brochures and fliers, small logo items, and hold a prize drawing to win a free night at an OHANA Hotel in Waikiki—our booth is one of the more popular booths and is usually surrounded by people.

Each year we ask our ‘ohana to help man our booth for the eight different shifts during the three-day festival. This year, they came out in force, with a total of 37 volunteers!  Mahalo to Danny Wang for his help in designing the bold and stunning OHANA T-shirt for our volunteers which read on the front in bright letters, OHANA…Born In The Islands; we certainly made our presence known throughout the festival! A big warm Mahalo goes out to our Outrigger ‘ohana who volunteered this year: Ellie Agustin, Virgi Asakawa, Nancy Brunner, Lauren Chow, Nancy and Dan Daniels, Heather Doeringer, Donna Ferreira, Beverly Fidel, Pattie Furtado, Evelyn Garcia, Kathy Hansberry, Sam Hoffman, Lorry Ijima-Sato and her son Gavin, Jane and Harold Inouye, Robert Ishihara, Ellen Isidro, Mercedes Lanza, Suzanne Lee, Dean Nakasone, Kathy Oyadomari, Marisa and Keith Sakamoto, Masako Sawyer, So’otana Tana, Denise Torres, Shawn and Shanna Usami, Karen Villarmia, Tom and Melanie Wakita, Jamie Wong, Taryn Wong, and Pam Yagi.

Mark your calendars! Next year’s Made in Hawaii Festival will be held August 20-22, 2010.