Ikena Leao of The Food Basket, the Hawaiʻi Island’s Food Bank, hands over a box of locally grown food at a pickup site in Puna, in September, as part of one of the islands’ many Food is Medicine pilot programs. (Thomas Heaton/Civil Beat/2026)
Suzette and Moses Paio live in Puna. Earlier this year they were part of a pilot from The Food Basket that brought them a box of fresh produce and protein every week.
NBC News and Civil Beat tells their story in a new report on Hawaiʻi’s plan to let doctors prescribe fresh food. Patients on Medicaid could start getting prescriptions for produce, fish, meat, and eggs as early as January.
The report also points to DA BUX, our program that doubles SNAP dollars for local produce, as a model for how the prescriptions could work.
Read the full story at NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hawaii-patients-may-soon-get-prescriptions-fresh-food-doctors-rcna607773
And at Civil Beat: https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/11/hawaii-doctors-may-soon-start-prescribing-fresh-food/
Need food now? Find a distribution near you at hawaiifoodbasket.org/find-food-now.