Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. In Hawai‘i alone, smoking claims 1,400 lives each year and creates $526 million in annual healthcare costs.

Since 2000, the Hawai‘i Community Foundation has administered the Hawai‘i Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund under a contract with the Department of Health (DOH). Since its inception, the state has achieved significant declines in smoking rates for both adults and youth. Hawai‘i has the fifth lowest smoking rate in the nation, representing real lives saved as well as public health expenditures avoided.

In partnership with the DOH, HCF implements a statewide comprehensive tobacco prevention and control program consistent with the Center for Disease Control’s best practices. This includes state and community interventions (advocacy efforts and community prevention grant program), health communication interventions, cessation interventions (Hawai‘i Tobacco Quit Line and cessation community grant program), surveillance and evaluation, and administration and management.

HCF leads strategy and implementation of a community cessation and prevention grant program. HCF’s cessation grants program supports community-based cessation programs that assist adults in priority populations (persons with mental health and/or substance abuse challenges, LGBT communities, and low socio-economic status populations) to end tobacco use.

2019-2023 Tobacco Cessation Grantee Cohort

Bay Clinic
Big Island Substance Abuse Council
Community Clinic of Maui: Mālama I Ke Ola
Hāmākua-Kohala Health Center
Hawai‘i Health & Harm Reduction Center
Ho‘ola Lahui Hawai‘i
I Ola Lāhui
Kapi‘olani Health Foundation
Kokua Kalihi Valley Comprehensive Family Services
Lāna‘i Community Health Center
Mālama Pono Health Services
Wai‘anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
Waikiki Health
Waimānalo Health Center
West Hawai‘i Community Health Center

HCF’s Youth ESD Prevention grants program supports community-based organizations to help prevent the initiation and use of Electronic Smoking Devices (ESDs) by Hawai‘i youth under age 18. The grant program is based on The Stanford Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, comprised of lesson plans to equip youth with skills to reduce experimentation and use of ESDs.

2021 Youth ESD Prevention Grantee Cohort

After-School All-Stars Hawai‘i
American Lung Association
Big Island Substance Abuse Council
Boys & Girls Club of the Big Island
I Ola Lāhui
Boys & Girls Club of Hawai‘i
Boys and Girls Club of Maui
Lānai Community Health Center
Parents and Children Together
The Salvation Army – Family Intervention Services
West Hawai‘i Community Health Center

More information on Hawai‘i’s tobacco prevention and control efforts:

Contribute to the Hawai‘i Tobacco Prevention and Control Trust Fund

The Medical Research Program supports clinical and basic research in a variety of areas determined by the source of funding. For specific areas of research refer to the RFP.

Find Out More aBOUT Medical Research Grants

The Hawai`i Community Foundation has provided grants for elderly services for over 30 years through the Persons in Need (PIN) for Elderly Services Program, now known as the Kūpuna Aging in Place (KAP) Program for Elderly Services.

The KAP program supports nonprofit organizations to provide the following:

1. Community-based support services for low- to moderate-income kūpuna age 65 or older provided in kūpuna’s homes or at a facility
2. Tuition assistance for low- to moderate-income kūpuna age 65 or older to attend licensed adult day care or adult day health programs
3. Caregiver support services through education, support groups, and respite

Find more information about the KAP Program

 

The Oscar and Rosetta Fish Speech Therapy fund was established by Oscar and Rosetta Fish.  Rosetta Ramsey moved to Hawai‘i in the early 1940’s from Ohio; she was a Speech Pathologist, and taught speech at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.  She then met and later married Oscar Fish, a successful self-made businessman, who also moved to Hawai‘i from the mainland.  He was a member of the University of Hawai‘i’s College of Business Administration’s first graduating class in 1959.  Before Oscar’s death in 1988, the Fish’s set up a scholarship fund to help students who are majoring in business.  Before Rosetta’s death in 1994, she also started this fund with the Hawai‘i Community Foundation to provide assistance to families who have children needing speech therapy; she cared much about children with speech disorders.  

Overview/Purpose:
To provide speech therapy services for disadvantaged children 3 to 5 years old.

2019 – 2021 Grantees:
Easter Seals Hawai‘i (serves children on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i Island, and Kaua‘i)
Family Support Service of West Hawai‘i (serves children on Hawai‘i Island)
Imua Family Services (serves children on Maui, Moloka‘i, and Lāna‘i)
Parents and Children Together (serves children on O‘ahu)
Sounds of Success Preschool (serves children on O‘ahu)

The Leahi Fund supports two grant programs.

Leahi Fund for Pulmonary Research - Scientific Research
The purpose of the Leahi Fund is “to support programs of research and education in, and the prevention of, pulmonary disease."

Leahi Fund for Pulmonary Research - Junior Investigator Clinical Research Career Development
The purpose of the Leahi Fund is to "support programs of research and education in, and the prevention of, pulmonary disease." This award is intended for junior faculty members of University of Hawai‘i (and other Hawai‘i based universities).