Hawaiʻi Appleseed launches 20 year anniversary giving campaign
The nonprofit hopes to raise $100,000 from individual and corporate donors by December 31.
HONOLULU, Hawaiʻi — Hawaiʻi Appleseed turns 20 years old this year, and the organization is celebrating two decades of advocacy for a Hawaiʻi in which everyone can meet their basic needs while living happy, healthy and creative lives.
“The work of Hawaiʻi Appleseed matters, first and foremost, because it has real, material impacts on the lives of people,” said Executive Director Gavin Thornton. “Our work on affordable housing, healthcare, food security, transportation equity, and fair wages and taxes matters because it helps everyday people in Hawaiʻi prosper and thrive with dignity. And while we’ve made great strides, a lot still needs to be done.”
To help ensure Hawaiʻi Appleseed continues making progress on its mission to create a Hawaiʻi that puts its people first, the organization has launched a 20 year anniversary giving campaign that seeks to raise $100,000 from individual grassroots and corporate donors over the remainder of the year.
“Securing funding for systems change work can often be challenging, so we are very grateful to our committed grant funders who fund large portions of our work on targeted issues like food insecurity, and emerging issues for us like transportation equity, that have important impacts on working families,” said Director of Development Connie Choy. “Every year, Hawaiʻi Appleseed also relies on the power of community funding to supplement our grant funding, and give us the flexibility to be effective advocates and take on other critical issues for which grant funding is not available.”
Notable Hawaiʻi Appleseed achievements over the past 20 years of advocacy include:
Using impact litigation to force the state to:
Stop overcharging low-income families in subsidized housing, resulting in rent reductions amounting to over $1 million every year since the case was resolved and ensuring that such housing serves its purpose as a platform for economic stability (2004–2011);
Ensure that homeless children in Hawaiʻi have full, meaningful access to a public education (2007–08);
Make long-overdue upgrades to the Kuhio Park Terrace and Mayor Wright Homes public housing developments that had fallen into extreme disrepair and squalor (2008–15);
Process and deliver Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits in a timely way to beneficiaries (2010–2011);
Preserve the right to access critical, life-saving healthcare for Compact of Free Association (COFA) residents (2010–2014);
Offer 14 different translations of the drivers’ test for Hawaiʻi residents for whom English is not a native language (2013–2015);
Increase foster care payments to account for the rising cost of living (2013–17; in 2017, the legislature took action to increase the foster care rates, rendering the lawsuit moot); and
Stop the developer of Front Street Apartments in Lahaina from abandoning its promise to keep the 142 units—developed using public funds—affordable for the full 51 years (2018–2020).
Using data-driven research and policy advocacy to help realize the passage of legislation to:
Establish the State of Hawaiʻi’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program, delivering $20 million dollars in tax relief each year to the working families of the state (2017);
At the county level, help curb the proliferation of illegal short-term rentals across the state (2018–present);
Establish DA BUX, a program for SNAP beneficiaries, which has dramatically expanded the capacity of low-income households to eat more healthy, locally-sourced food. DA BUX has become one of the most popular government programs in the state (2019);
Adopt a Hawaiʻi Appleseed proposal to create an emergency rent relief and eviction mediation program during the COVID-19 pandemic (Act 57) that helped prevent thousands of evictions across the state (2021);
Increase Hawaiʻi’s minimum wage, providing for a transition from $10.10 to $18 an hour over 6 years, delivering $1 billion in additional wages each year to the state’s more than 200,000 low-wage workers that continues to translate into economic growth and prosperity for the entire community (2022);
Expand the state EITC to maximize its benefits and better-target them toward the truly low-income families that need the help the most, increasing the credit’s total value to $40 million each year (2022);
Inject almost $1 billion in state funds to develop affordable housing, as well as millions more in increased funding for homelessness services (2022); and
At the federal level, Hawaiʻi Appleseed advocacy has also contributed to the securing an increased reimbursement rate for school lunch and other child nutrition programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that is expected to bring an additional $8 million a year into our state to feed Hawaiʻi’s keiki (2023).
Read more about the 20 year history of Hawaiʻi Appleseed here.
