The Food Basket and Hawaiʻi County’s Department of Research and Development announced a $500,000 grant program to fight the island’s food insecurity issue. Grants are available to existing projects that strengthen food security and economic resilience.
This initiative is part of the county’s larger ongoing effort to project called the Improving Community Food Security Program.
"The overall goal is helping to increase capacity and resilience of existing programs, identifying what resources are out there and figuring out how we can best support them," said Audrey Metzman, the project coordinator.
"These are actually life-saving measures to some people, and a lot of these workers are just doing this work out of the kindness of their hearts."
The Food Basket feeds roughly 60,000 people across the island per month. Metzman noted that cuts to food assistance programs, like SNAP, put a greater number of people at risk of facing food insecurity, with kūpuna being some of the most vulnerable.
Metzman has heard from many programs, some of which feed over 700 people a week, that are struggling to continue to provide the services that their community relies on. She said this new grant program will allow them to get new equipment, expand storage space, and increase the already-great work that’s being done.
“A lot of them are kūpuna themselves trying to support other vulnerable populations. So many are driving their own vehicles and paying for their own gas to go deliver food,” she said.
“It’s one thing to say we appreciate them, and it's a completely different thing to say, ‘Hey, you’re doing amazing work, let’s make sure you are getting the resources and assistance you need to keep doing what you’re doing.’”
Out of the total fund, $50,000 will be allotted to each of the nine districts on Hawaiʻi Island. An extra $50,000 will be put in a general fund that will be available to applicants. Each individual grant is capped at $25,000 per program.
Funding for the initiative comes from the American Rescue Plan Act’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which is a federal program that was created to aid in relief efforts after COVID-19.
Interested applicants can apply here by Oct.15.
