09/17/2026
Books can open doors to imagination and possibility, and in difficult times, they can help people see that they are not alone in their experiences. We are deeply touched to see Once I Was Very Very Scared included in this moving tribute to Kristi Yamaguchi and Always Dream's work across Hawaii. And, we are so glad if our story helped the children and families affected by the Lahaina fire.
"The fire took King Kamehameha III's campus on Front Street. It did not take the school. The foundation stepped back. It sent 300 copies of a picture book called Once I Was Very Very Scared."
An ad man said it plainly: "Generally, advertisers want white bread."
Kristi Yamaguchi was 20 years old. That February, in Albertville, France, she had become the first Asian American to win a Winter Olympic gold medal.
Twenty-three years later, every child in her new reading program at a Kalihi elementary school got a red bag. Inside were books and a reading tablet.
The ad man was David Burns, and in March 1992 he ran a Chicago firm that matched athletes with products. He predicted two or three commercials for her, at around $50,000 each. Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming had turned the same gold into millions.
A New York agent, Marty Blackman, told the same reporter: "With Kristi's looks and her last name, some people will always believe that she's Japanese, no matter how many nights she starred on CBS."
On Entertainment Tonight she answered: "I'm fourth generation American."
She brought the gold home for America. The ad men were not sure America would take her.
Her family's American story began in Hawaii. On November 16, 1899, her grandfather, a 21-year-old farmer named Tatsuichi Yamaguchi, left Japan with a three-year contract at the Onomea Sugar Company near Hilo. The 1900 census found him cutting cane for fifteen dollars a month.
Two world titles. Olympic gold. A Dancing with the Stars trophy in 2008. A New York Times bestselling picture book about a pig.
She had been a shy kid. On the buses and planes to competitions, books were her escape. In 1996 she started a foundation called Always Dream.
Then, in 2015, she brought its reading program to Hawaii.
In early March 2015, Kristi Yamaguchi visited Linapuni Elementary in Kalihi and read the students her book, Dream Big, Little Pig! Every child got the red bag. The program was aimed at families with little access to books and technology.
In 1992 the ad men asked what she could sell. In Kalihi she was not selling anything.
Then came August 8, 2023.
Always Dream had hoped to start that school year in Lahaina, at King Kamehameha III Elementary and Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena Elementary.
The fire took King Kamehameha III's campus on Front Street. It did not take the school.
The foundation stepped back. It sent 300 copies of a picture book called Once I Was Very Very Scared.
In April 2024, at 52, Kristi Yamaguchi said what those 1992 headlines had felt like: "it is also hurtful, saying that you're maybe not worth as much as someone else because of your ethnicity."
They said her face and her last name would cost her. She put that name on a reading program for Hawaii's kids anyway.
Lahaina's kids had already come back. On October 18, 2023, about 300 students from Princess Nāhiʻenaʻena and more than 200 students from King Kamehameha III returned to one shared campus. The principal, Gary Kanamori, told the King Kamehameha III families: welcome home.
In fall 2024, her program followed them in. Their youngest took home tablets and books, with a Book Coach for each ʻohana.
In 2015 it was a red bag in Kalihi. Last school year it was 21 schools on four islands, and five more schools join this year. In April, the Hawaii Dream Gala marking 30 years of Always Dream raised more than $309,000. Today every dollar from that gala stays in Hawaii.
The ad men wanted white bread. Hawaii's kids got Kristi Yamaguchi.
