Legislature shows support for local agriculture, food security
Food security advocates are also celebrating policies that will make it easier for kūpuna and inmates nearing the end of their sentences to participate in SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Free school meals are popular. Hawaiʻi isn’t sold.
Three years after lawmakers first considered making school meals free for all kids, students and teachers are still pushing for change.
Push to feed Hawaiʻi kids more local food is ‘structural disaster’
The DOE has not taken the effort seriously and has no real plan for how to meet a legislative mandate to spend 30 percent of its food budget locally by 2030, according to a state audit.
Hawaiʻi to restrict soda purchases under SNAP in 2026; local groups oppose
Instead, increasing incentives for fruits and vegetables does a better job of promoting healthy eating and reducing purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages among SNAP participants.
Hawaiʻi DOE wants another $30M for a facility that hasn’t been built
The Department of Education is pinning its local food buying goals on a central facility, and the budget is getting bigger and bigger.
State officials discuss expansion of free school meals
SB1300 would require the state DOE to appropriate funding for meals for students who come from households classified as “asset limited, income restrained, employed,” (ALICE).
Hawaiʻi food insecurity persists post COVID-19
Even as Hawaiʻi distances itself from the harshest effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-hunger advocates say that elevated food insecurity among residents has not only persisted but is growing.
VIDEO: Anti-hunger leaders join ‘Spotlight Hawaiʻi’
Hawaiʻi Food Bank CEO Amy Miller Marvin and Daniela Spoto, Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s director of Anti-Hunger Initiatives, joined the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaiʻi.”