Hawaiian Humane Society unveils Pets in Paradise calendar contest
Gov. Green to hold ceremony to honor Pride Month
The annual 'Pets in Paradise' calendar contest fundraiser gives Hawaii residents a chance to showcase their furry, feathered or scaly companions in the nonprofit's popular calendar, while helping raise funds for animal welfare services statewide.
'This contest is really about celebrating the special connection people have with their pets,' said Anna Neubauer, president and CEO of the Hawaiian Humane Society. 'But even more importantly, every photo entered and every vote cast directly supports animals in need — from lifesaving medical care to helping families stay together during hard times.'
Submissions are open from June 1 through June 30. Pet owners can enter by submitting high-quality, landscape-format photos of their pets in one of three categories: Dog, Cat, and Other Animals.
The entry fee is $30 per photo, and households can submit as many entries as they like.Once a photo is entered, friends and family can vote online for $1 per vote — with all proceeds going toward more than 30 Hawaiian Humane programs, including pet adoption, rescue operations, spay/neuter services and humane education.
Top vote-getters in each category will land a coveted spot in the 2026 calendar:
Top 5 Dogs
Top 5 Cats
Top 2 'Other' Animals
Even if a pet doesn't win a featured month, there's still a chance to be included in thumbnail galleries throughout the calendar.
Calendars are available for pre-order at $25 (plus $5 shipping) and will be mailed out in November.
Download the free KHON2 app for iOS or Android to stay informed on the latest news
Photo Guidelines:
Landscape format, at least 1280 pixels wide, and 1MB file size minimum
No people in the photo (pets only)
Multiple pets allowed per image
All pets must legally reside in Hawaiʻi
To enter, vote or reserve a calendar date, visit HawaiianHumane.org/PetsInParadise.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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New York Times
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Taking cues from social media, many overseas consumers are also seeking out the highest-quality matcha, which is traditionally used only in tea ceremonies, instead of culinary-grade matcha, which is cheaper and easier to produce, experts said. The higher-grade matcha is time- and labor-intensive and only produced in small quantities, experts said. Farmers must handpick the tea leaves, which are dried and then ground in specialized stone mills that can each process less than two ounces of leaves per hour. Social media seemed to be driving the idea that high-quality matcha should be used in everyday drinks, such as matcha lattes, but it was 'never intended to be a mass-market item,' said Agnes Balogh, the managing director of Sazen Tea, a retailer in Kyoto, Japan. In September 2023, the company sold about 2,700 units of top-grade matcha grown in Uji, Japan's best-known tea-producing region, Ms. Balogh said. A year later, that monthly figure had more than quintupled, to nearly 14,000 units. Sazen Tea's website sells ceremonial-grade Uji matcha in small packages, with the largest containing 40 grams, or around 1.4 ounces. 'We simply can't keep up with the demand,' she said. The retailer, which mostly sells to customers in the United States, has put limits on online orders. Otherwise, 'our entire monthly stock would sell out within a few hours,' Ms. Balogh said. Signs that worldwide demand was straining Japan's matcha industry began to appear late last year, tea experts and sellers said, when a few popular brands began implementing buying limits, increasing prices or temporarily suspending sales. At that point, the craze appeared to be focused on a few brands that had blown up on social media but generally, matcha was still available, said Anna Poain, director of the Global Japanese Tea Association, a Kyoto-based nonprofit that works to raise the profile of Japanese teas internationally. 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