Have you ever been in a grocery store and seen items marked “WIC approved”? It stands for “women infants and children.” It’s a federally funded state run supplemental nutrition assistance program. And while the program’s primary aim is to supply nutritious food to eligible families — it also does much more — it can connect mothers to resources like breastfeeding support, nutrition education and even referrals to health care. Andressa Costa of Edgartown started using WIC 11 years ago when her first son was born.
“It was very different back then than it is now. Before we needed checks, we had checks, you know.”
Historically and in some cases currently participating mothers would use actual paper “checks” to utilize their WIC benefits.
“So it was kind of hard being in line, and you had all those checks in your hand and then you had to first put all the WIC products and then after do the other ones that are not from WIC and then had a line back to you. And then everybody's looking at you like ‘hurry up !’ And now it's a lot easier.“
Partly it’s easier because WIC has moved away from paper checks and toward more modern systems like cards and apps. But locally, things have also changed because last year the Martha's Vineyard Health Imperatives received a grant in partnership with the Island Grown Initiative to fund the Island's WIC program. Korrine Altieri is a WIC nutritionist and the outreach program coordinator, her position was created through this grant. I asked her to share some statistics on how it impacted the program. It’s changed a lot for mothers like Andressa.
“When analyzed through this year we expect more than 500 participants will be served for the year. So there's definitely been an increase in caseload since the grant had been initiated.”
Program organizers and mothers like Andressa say the program has become a lot easier to navigate — and now Andressa has twins! So everything that's expensive about 1 baby times two!
“I'm able to get the formula through them, you know? So each formula, it's $20. So I imagine I go through at least one or two a week. So if I didn't have WIC, I don't know, it'd be a lot! Probably be what? Around $300-350 a month just for formulas. It helps, for me, too, you know, because I get food for myself, but it really helps for the kids too. For sure.”
Another way the WIC program has improved is that now it has a certified interpreter on their two person team. Hannah Santos is the Bi-lingual assistant and Ambassador for WIC.
“So if a client or a mom is calling us we would say this is Hannah with WIC or : Oi! Eu sou a Hanna que trabalha na WIC, estou ligando para fazer sua consulta você pode falar agora?”
The changes are helping a lot. Not only have caseloads increased but Both Korrine and Hannah agree: this program is more effectively providing quality care than it ever has. For example, before the grant- nutritionist from Hyannis WIC would come to the Island twice a month, instead now Korrine and Hannah can meet with mothers any day of the week, go grocery shopping with them, help them understand the app, issue them a new card if need be. They’re providing services that mothers like Andressa depend on. But there are still challenges. Andressa says there’s a lot of stigma around using WIC in general and that's also true for the Brazilian community on the Vineyard.
“I've been talking my social media all the time. I've tried to make videos when I go to Stop a Shop and tell them about work and tell them their you know, if you need it, you can go you know, and get it to you know, doing and I always tell them if you have a chance if you want to you can talk to me, you can send me a message.”
And it seems like this outreach may be working. I also spoke to two other participants. Well, I spoke to Maria, who moved to the Island from the Czech Republic a year ago and waved at Oliver (her 5 week old baby) but he did wave back.
“It is like financially supporting, and it's nice to like going shopping and like having this like a discount or something. But also, it's very, like warming that oh, there are some people who are thinking about us and they're trying to help with nutrition or yeah, actually even with lactation, a causal consultant, I suppose. I'm speaking every single week after he was born. We had some troubles so it feels like I have some other people I can turn to if I have questions about this, like a new era of our lives.”
