About four years ago during the pandemic lockdown, Maui resident Kimberly Thayer had the idea to start a take-a-slipper, leave-a-slipper lending library.
"I have two kids, and they were pretty young at the time, and they're at the stage when, you know, we go to Longs and buy a pair of rubber slippers, and then two days later, you know, we stop at the beach or go play outside and they lose one of them or one of them is broken," she said.
"So we had this stockpile of one side of all these rubber slippers, and I couldn't bring myself to just throw them away. And so I tried to think of, what else can we do with this?"
Da Slippah Library began as an old chicken coop outside her home in Paukūkalo. It has helped people exchange rain boots, bodyboarding fins, cleats, toys — and many slippers.
"One thing this has shown is that there's obviously interest and demand out there for this kind of a thing," she said. "I think there's this idea of building, of being able to share resources and not having to buy new all the time."
Find Da Slippah Library on Ukali Street in Paukūkalo.
This interview aired on The Conversation on June 4, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
