Once again, Best Buddies in Hawaii’s annual Friendship Jam will join forces with Champion of the Year, a fundraising competition featuring a select group of individuals, professionals and leaders prominent in the Hawai’i community. A Best Buddies Champion is someone who embraces philanthropy and who uses the connections within their communities to advocate for inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Our Champions are all of those things and more.

Following the eight-week campaign, Best Buddies will recognize the candidate who has raised the largest amount in donations at our virtual Champion of the Year Friendship Jam event which will air November 19th at 7:00 PM HST on K5 (with encores on KHNL and KGMB), and livestream at HawaiiNewsNow.com/bestbuddies, HawaiiTheatre.com, and Facebook.com/bestbuddieshi.

This year’s emcee is actor and KUMU radio host Devon Nekoba who will join our Best Buddies Ambassadors to talk about all of our programs and introduce performances by musical artists Alx Kawakami (pre-show 6:30 – 7:00 PM HST), John Cruz, Ginai, and Henry Kapono. There will also be a silent auction and Bid From the Heart session.

While attendance is free, we ask that you register for the concert so we can send you exciting updates as we get close to the event date. We are also suggesting a recommended donation of $25, with all proceeds going to Best Buddies in Hawai’i programming.

Mahalo nui loa! We can’t wait to celebrate with you!