November Open Networking Meeting
- Are you interested in how state legislation can impact healthier food in low-income neighborhoods?
- Do you believe there is room for growth in our farmer’s market programming?
- Do you believe mothers and their children should get up-to-date nutrition advice and services?
If you answered yes to any of the above, attending this months FSNYC’s Open Networking Meeting is a must.
Join us to for a discussion about the future of the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children (WIC) with:
Geri Henchy, Food Research and Action Center , Washington D.C.
Bob Lewis of NYS Dept of Agriculture and Markets.
Our guest host will be Stacey Flanagan, Public Health Solutions.
In 1974 as one response to the realization that hunger and poverty were widespread in this country congress enacted the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children. Today, WIC serves over 8.5 million women, infants and children, over 510,000 in New York State, alone. Over ten years ago, USDA sought comments on the creation of a culturally sensitive food package. At that time, an analysis of the comments showed that the WIC food prescriptions were not culturally acceptable to the diverse population served - and might actually contribute to a decrease in WIC participation. Since then, requests for revisions to WIC foods and food packages now in use have continued through formal and informal discussions.
In 2005, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) made a series of recommendations and published a report with the suggested changes. After several rounds of comments to USDA, an interim Food Package was introduced in 2008 with strict guidelines to implement nationwide by October 2009.
In January, New York State will be the first to implement the new WIC food package. This change will allow the benefits to be used to purchase a much wider range of healthy foods, including fresh produce.
For the full report on the interim rule: http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/
More information about WIC, check out the Time for Change Tool Kit on the FRAC website: http://www.frac.org/WIC/index.
For the full report from Institute of Medicine: http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3788/
Tuesday, Nov 11th
12:30-2pm
(brown bag lunch at noon)
16 E 34th St, 8th floor
