Grocery bags loaded with food from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, sit in a cart before being loaded into a vehicle in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013. Despite a partial shutdown of the federal government, Mississippi has gotten permission to keep operating WIC through October. WIC helps pregnant, breastfeeding and post-partum women, plus infants and children younger than five and affects more than 94,000 low- to moderate-income women and children. Money to pay for WIC goes through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the state Health Department operates 96 distribution sites for the program.
I report on energy and the environment for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.
My work focuses on responses and solutions to climate change in the state legislature and communities around the state. I trace my interest in these issues back to my time as a Girl Scout and this episode of Rocko’s Modern Life.
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Grocery bags loaded with food from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, sit in a cart before being loaded into a vehicle in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, Oct. 3, 2013. Despite a partial shutdown of the federal government, Mississippi has gotten permission to keep operating WIC through October. WIC helps pregnant, breastfeeding and post-partum women, plus infants and children younger than five and affects more than 94,000 low- to moderate-income women and children. Money to pay for WIC goes through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the state Health Department operates 96 distribution sites for the program.
(Harrisburg) — Pennsylvania is among the first states in the country to roll out an upgrade to a supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children–also known as WIC.
The program administered by the state Health Department is moving from paper checks to eWIC cards, which work like debit cards.
Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said they will make the program more convenient.
Paper checks had to be used all at once, and carried potential stigma. The eWIC cards will allow multiple purchases through the month.
Levine said participation can have important health benefits; studies show childhood obesity rates for children in the program have declined over time.
“The WIC program serves low-income families and really is to ensure that children, even prenatally and then after birth get a healthy start,” she said.
The eWIC cards are now available in south central Pennsylvania and will be available across the commonwealth by November.
Participants should visit their WIC center to enroll.
