Food Assistance in a “SNAP”

Hawaii’s Lanakila Pacific’s Supplemental Food Assistance Program (SNAP) 

partnership to reach homebound seniors 

Social Determinants of Health:

Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in the environment 

where people are born, live, work, play, worship and age. They affect a wide 

range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. 

The SNAP partnership at Lanakila Pacific focuses on the following SDOH 

objective: 

1. Decreasing household food insecurity and hunger

Overview of the Program: Healthy People 2030

Lanakila Pacific is a program in Hawaii that is dedicated to empowering individuals with cognitive, 

physical, social, and age-related challenges to live an independent and fulfilled life. 

Lanakila Pacific utilizes a local SNAP Outreach contract to educate food insecure households, including

older adults in need of home-delivered meals. Lanakila Pacific is also a SNAP vendor, able to receive 

SNAP benefits from participants to purchase home-delivered meals and produce subscription boxes. 

These produce subscription boxes are delivered along with the home-delivered meals. In Hawaii, SNAP 

dollars can purchase double the amount of produce through the local Double Up Food Bucks program 

when purchasing local produce. This further assists in reducing food insecurity in Hawaii for older 

adults.

Partners:

Lanakila Pacific acts as a “middleman”, partnering with local farmers to obtain fresh produce for their 

meals and produce subscription boxes. A partnership with the Hawaii Food Basket--the Double Up Food 

Bucks contracted program administrator--makes the produce even more affordable for their 

participants. Additional partnerships include the Hawaii Farm Bureau, the local Aloha United Way, and 

private foundation grants.

Funding and Sustainability:

Additional partnerships with the Hawaii Farm Bureau, the local Aloha United Way, and private foundation 

grants helped launch the produce subscription service and provided multiple rounds of free fresh 

produce to their participants during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then, once the participants were familiar with the different types of produce they might receive, they 

then were willing to join the produce box subscription going forward. 

Lanakila Pacific sees the program as only a portion of a movement to create food security in Hawaii. The 

organization continues to subsidize this program, to help with the total cost for the participants. Plans 

are currently underway to establish a food hub. The food hub will help to make the program financially 

sustainable. In keeping with Lanakila Pacific’s mission, providing job training and employment for 

individuals with disabilities will be a key component of the food hub. In the future, the project’s 

commercial kitchen may utilize the fresh produce to create a value-added product. A few examples of 

value-added products are salsa, jams/jellies, soup, etc. This can also assist with financial sustainability.
Timeline

2018 

• Hawaii Hunger Action Network: Lanakila Pacific joins the Hawaii Hunger Action Network which 

brings organizations together to talk about food security. Here they first connected with experts in 

food safety, farming practices, etc.

2019

• Addition of Produce Subscription Boxes: The organization started talking about produce 

subscription service because they felt it would add value to their home-delivered meals. It would 

also give them more opportunity and more purchasing power to buy local produce for

incorporation into their meals. 

2020

• Partnership Opportunity: In 2020, Hawaii’s tourism and related businesses shut down. With no 

hotels and restaurants operating, local farmers had a surplus of produce that was going to waste. 

Lanakila Pacific saw the opportunity to help both the farmers as well as their participants. They 

were able to purchase directly from the farmers and begin offering their produce boxes.
Advice for Replication:

“Utilize partnerships to create layers of support for your participants.”

Lori Lau | Lanakila Pacific 

In addition, Lanakila Pacific stresses that this program was able to take advantage of the shifts in the 

need and environment during a global pandemic. It is able to succeed because it remains nimble 

and adaptable while staying focused on its mission and determination to fight food insecurity.

Tools and Resources:

1. Healthy People 2030, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention 

and Health Promotion. Retrieved July 27, 2022, from https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectivesand-data/social-determinants-health

This project was supported in part by grant number 90PPNU0002 from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, 

Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government 

sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, 

necessarily represent official ACL policy.