About Us

Save the FoodBasket's mission is to provide low income individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS on Oahu with nourishing food and aloha, a community to thrive in, and a way to empower themselves and others.

Our Vision

Save the FoodBasket strives to significantly improve the health of our clients by being a responsive, flexible, empowering, client centered, and volunteer run organization.

Our History

In 1996, low income individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS on Oahu saw the end of a cherished supermarket gift coupon program. In response, a handful of dedicated volunteers organized a small food distribution they called the FoodBasket. They were soon overwhelmed by the extent of the need, cost and demands on their energy of their ambitious project. In November 1996, local attorney John Manion stepped up to save The FoodBasket – hence our name.

As founding Director, John incorporated the organization as a 501(c)(3) and expanded the FoodBasket to a once-a-month food distribution and luncheon, prepared on site in the kitchen of the Church of the Crossroads, whose congregation has hosted the FoodBasket from its inception. John recruited numerous client and community volunteers to an experience that could have been described as “organized chaos.” Volunteers had a great time cheering up clients and each other, along with handing out sacks of fresh vegetables and fruit, canned goods, rice, and other pantry items. Volunteer jobs were simple and interchangeable to reduce client-volunteer stress and to allow for their illnesses, which were a continual challenge in those days before protease inhibitors became widely prescribed.

Because Save the FoodBasket events felt so much like garden parties, volunteers often brought friends and family to pitch in and join the fun, while newly motivated clients swelled the ranks of the volunteers. This empowerment supported many client-volunteers in regaining their lost sense of self-respect and usefulness in the community. Many committed what little energy they had to the FoodBasket, which was the closest they could come to their former status as professionals and working people. Over the years, however, as client-volunteers became healthier, some moved on to jobs or to school. Save the FoodBasket had become a unique “self help” organization.

Early in 2001, Save the FoodBasket added the Bill’s Place storefront and expanded its luncheon and food distribution schedule from once a month to twice a week. Named after recently deceased AIDS activist Bill Healy, Bill’s Place first operated out of a few shelves and kitchen refrigerators. After restaurant-grade refrigeration units were installed, volunteers began to distribute increased quantities of fresh or frozen meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, butter, as well as fresh fruits, vegetables and pantry items.  The program has grown and adapted to client needs to form the robust organization it is today.