WIC feeding thousands of Iowa moms, kids

CEDAR RAPIDS - A federal program is putting some healthier food on the tables of nearly 4,500 Linn County children and their mothers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Women, Infants and Children supplemental food program provides a strictly specified menu of foods for pregnant and nursing women and children up to 5 years old. WIC is administered locally by the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program.

“It is a help,” said Jami Randall, 20, of Center Point, “especially with a kid coming.”

Expecting her first child in February, Randall recently came to HACAP's Inn Circle shelter for women and children to sign up for WIC. A resident at the Area Substance Abuse Council's Heart of Iowa treatment program, Randall said WIC will help her transition to independence.

ASAC provides two meals on weekdays, and WIC's groceries “will help with the weekends and the morning meals,” she said.

WIC is open to households earning up to 185 percent of the federal poverty level - $40,793 for a family of four.

WIC served 4,447 Linn County mothers and children in October, said Kim Ott, HACAP's program manager. A total of 9,891 were on the program over the past year. The number varies because households come off WIC as a child turns 5.

Johnson County averaged 2,346 participants monthly between January and October, up slightly over 2008.

In September, 75,959 Iowans total were on WIC. The state was allocated $54.74 million for WIC of a nationwide total of $6.86 billion this fiscal year.

The appropriation is set to increase to $7.25 billion next year, said USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel. Unlike the food stamp program, WIC isn't an entitlement and depends on a specific appropriation.

WIC participants receive a three-month voucher tailored to their specific needs.

“It's like a nutrition subscription,” Daniel said. “The mothers are evaluated for nutritional risk, and the food program is designed to be supplemental. It's designed to address nutritional deficiencies.”

LeAnn Viter, a registered nurse with HACAP, spends Thursdays at the Inn Circle shelter, advising mothers and mothers-to-be on their and their children's nutritional needs. She decided, for example, that the child of one mother was drinking too much milk, so she specified more juice on her WIC voucher.

Viter also wrote up a monthly voucher for $6 for fresh or frozen vegetables.

The vegetables are part of a recent change in the WIC list of allowable foods. The 2008 farm bill added fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, whole grains, soy milk and tofu, along with changes to baby food guidelines calling for less sugar.

“There's a lot more option with the whole grains and the protein option,” HACAP's Ott said. “There's a lot more choices to offer.”

Randall said the WIC voucher will help put food on her young family's table as she looks for work early next year.

“It will help me get there,” Randall said.