(Salt
Lake City, UT) – Utah’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program received
$2.5 million in emergency funding from the United States Department of
Agriculture that will allow the program to re-open its clinics and begin
issuing food vouchers to both new and existing clients.
Staff
will return to clinics as soon as possible and can begin issuing new food
vouchers immediately upon their return. It
is anticipated all clinics will be open by noon tomorrow, Friday, October 4. Clinics in Salt Lake County and Summit County
that used local emergency funding to keep their doors open during the shutdown
will be able to begin issuing new food vouchers immediately.
The
emergency funding is expected to keep the program running at full scale through
the end of October. If the federal
government does not resume normal operations by then, it’s likely the program
would again have to scale back its operations.
“This
is welcome news for the 66,000 moms, babies, and children we serve, especially
those who didn’t have food vouchers for the month of October,” said Utah WIC
Director Chris Furner. “Unfortunately,
we’re not entirely out of the woods. If
Washington can’t reach an agreement to end the shutdown by the end of this
month, we’ll likely wind up in the same position we found ourselves in earlier
this week.”
Funded
entirely by the federal government, but administered by the state and local
health departments in Utah, the WIC program provides food and nutrition
education to low-income pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding women, and
infants and children up to age five.
The
program has been partially closed since Tuesday due to the federal government
shutdown; WIC clinics were shuttered, staff were furloughed, and no new food
vouchers were issued. Vouchers that have
been issued for use during the month of October have been, and will continue to
be honored at all 300 retailers throughout the state that participate in the
WIC program.
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Media
Contact:
Tom
Hudachko
Public
Information Officer
(o)
801-538-6232
(m)
801-560-4649
