It’s easy to think they’ve always been here. You walk into a visitor center in a national park and there’s the store. Shelves of books you won’t find anywhere else. Locally made art. Field guides. A child picking out her first patch, plush, or postcard. It feels like part of the park itself. But these stores didn’t just appear. They grew out of a mission to help people connect more deeply to the places they were visiting.
Back in 1916, the National Park Service was established to care for a small but growing group of parks, including Hawaiʻi National Park which, at that time, included both Maui and Hawaiʻi Island acreage. As more people began visiting these new public lands across the nation, they wanted more than just a quick look. They wanted to understand what they were seeing—the wild landscapes, the history of the people there, the stories of the past and ideas about the future. National park staff were overwhelmed by the tides of visitors exploring "America's Best Idea", and couldn’t manage it all alone. In 1920, the Yosemite Museum Association was founded and stepped in to help. They began offering books and educational materials to visitors, creating a new kind of partnership, one that focused on education, connection, and support.
That idea made its way to Hawaiʻi in 1933 with the founding of the Hawaii Natural History Association (HNHA) at what is now Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. From the beginning, its purpose was clear: Support the parks. Serve the visitor. By the 1940s, visitors to Kīlauea Volcano could stop at a small overlook built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and find books, journals, maps, certificates, and simple items to help them remember their visit.
Over time, both the national parks and our partnerships with them grew. In 1961, Hawaii National Park was divided into Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on Hawaiʻi Island, and Haleakalā National Park on Maui. Over the following decades, the association expanded its support to Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park, Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, the National Park of American Samoa, and the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail.
In 2011, HNHA took on a new name and a new branding identity: the Hawaiʻi Pacific Parks Association, or HPPA.
Today, HPPA serves as an official nonprofit partner to the National Park Service across Hawaiʻi and American Samoa. Our mission still centers on connection and park support, and our many visitor center stores and online shop are one part of that. HPPA frontline staff, and carefully curated sales items, help people understand where they are, why that matters, and how they can be part of caring for the parks they love.
The goal has never been just retail. Every item you touch, consider, and take home with you was chosen or developed with intention and partnership with NPS staff to tell the many stories of the park. We curate a collection of books that deepen understanding, and a wide array of other products that reflect an important sense of place. We partner with local artists and makers. We work to offer items that will carry the story of the park beyond the visit.
And then there’s what happens next. Proceeds from those purchases are donated back to the parks. They help fund education programs for local students, support cultural practitioners who share local knowledge and tradition, contribute to conservation work, and improve the visitor experience. Over time, that adds up. Since 1933, more than $35 million has been raised and donated to our park partners.
HPPA is also part of a larger national network. Across the country, more than 60 nonprofit cooperating associations support over 300 National Park Service sites. So, when you step into a visitor center park store, you’re stepping into an over-one hundred year history. You are now part of a partnership that started small and grew as the National Park Service did; one that continues today with every purchase that tells a wonderful story, and that helps give back.
It’s a simple idea, really, for us and for you. Get inspired, make that connection, preserve the parks we all love.
Read more about our history.
Shop to support the national parks.
Check out our last Impact Reports.
IMGS: HPPA/NPS archives
