From students at UNC all the way to corporations like Food Lion, groups in North Carolina sprang into action upon hearing about the potential loss of support for low-income pregnant women, new mothers and infants due to the federal shutdown.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services announced last Tuesday that it would stop issuing vouchers through the Women, Infants and Children program due to a loss of funding from the government shutdown. But three days later, the DHHS released a second announcement that WIC would continue to issue vouchers for the rest of October.
According to a statement from the DHHS, funds to continue the WIC program through the end of October were found in lapsing funds from the previous fiscal year, contingency funds from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and product rebates from Nestle Foods, a formula manufacturer for WIC.
According to the DHHS, 263,793 people receive aid from the WIC program in North Carolina. In Orange County, the WIC program serves about 3,000 people every month.
The program gives recipients vouchers for food and nutrition education classes, as well as health care referrals.
In response to the DHHS’s initial statement on WIC funding, Food Lion, headquartered in Salisbury, donated $500,000 in $5 gift cards to several food banks located in Asheville, Charlotte, Elizabeth City, Fayetteville, Raleigh and Winston-Salem.
“Once we learned (WIC) didn’t receive enough (funding), we really wanted to take a leading role across the state in providing that critical funding to the food banks for the increased need they were receiving,” said Christy Phillips-Brown, spokeswoman for Food Lion.
And at UNC, students Charlotte Stewart, Natalie Deyneka, Melanie Stratton Lopez and Kenley Eaglestone set up a drop box in the School of Law to collect baby formula, specialty formula and various other nonperishables immediately after the DHHS press release.
“Food pantries all across the state have been completely depleted, and we’re still not sure what’s going to happen at the end of the month, so we’re going to continue the drive until we have federal funding again,” Eaglestone said.
