06/18/2026
On July 29, 2026, 4:30PM-7:30PM, at the Koret Auditorium, the Filipina Women's Network (FWN) and the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) will launch the global ‘Flood DISRUPT Books Everywhere’ campaign with the donation of 300 books — five DISRUPT Filipina Leadership volumes in 60 complete sets.
The book donation will benefit public libraries across the Bay Area, including San Francisco, Daly City (the largest Filipino American population concentration of any mid-sized city in North America), San Mateo County, Oakland, Richmond, and San José.
SPEAKERS invited include San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, Philippine Consul General San Francisco Arnel G. Talisayon, City Librarian, SFPL, Michael Lambert, FWN CEO Marily Mondejar, and Andreliz Bautista McGlade, CEO, Pharmacopia (Helen’s daughter).
The DISRUPT Filipina Leadership Series is a groundbreaking book collection that documents the leadership stories of victories over poverty, domestic violence, incarceration, discrimination, and harassment that shaped the authors’ worldviews, leadership identities, life purposes, power, and influence. Each chapter is a first-person essay by Filipina women leaders — entrepreneurs, scientists, educators, artists, public servants, diplomats, organizers — across sectors and continents. The series, organized by FWN, is the result of more than 12 years of editorial work by Dr. Maria Beebe since 2014.
The book donation launch is in honor of the late Library Commissioner Helen Marte Bautista, an FWN founding member, a 2009 Most Influential Filipina Woman in the US Awardee, and a long-serving Commissioner of the SFPL Library Commission. Each donated set carries a custom bookplate honoring her decades of service to the city's libraries and to Filipina civic leadership in the Bay Area, as well as the individual donors who sponsored each set of books.
If you would like to nominate a library in the San Francisco Bay Area, please let us know, including the librarian’s contact info, by emailing [email protected], so we can review your nominee and add it to FWN’s Beneficiary List.
To give a set of 5 books ($100) under your name or in honor of a loved one or an esteemed colleague, go to ffwn.org/donate. Indicate in the Comments the name of your honoree.
JOIN FWN and SFPL on July 29, 2026, at 4PM at the Koret Auditorium. RSVP is complimentary with registration at ffwn.org/events.
Let’s show up and celebrate this powerful time for the Filipino community.
See you at this historic event,
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