CULPEPER STAR-EXPONENT

Spanberger urges full funding for WIC

U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, is among 168 colleagues urging House and U.S. Senate leadership to protect the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the 2024 fiscal year — fully funded by Congress every year since 1997.

WIC provides healthy food, breastfeeding support, nutrition education, health care referrals and other interventions for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and non-breastfeeding postpartum women and infants and children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk. More than 120,000 mothers and children in Virginia and up to two million participants across the U.S. will likely lose access to the program or be unable to enroll without full funding in the final appropriations package, according to a Jan. 10 release from Spanberger.

“WIC is a vital lifeline for millions of vulnerable American families,” she and her colleagues said in a letter to congressional leadership. “For more than 25 years, there has been a bipartisan commitment to provide adequate funding for WIC to serve every eligible family that relies on the program and to ensure that those in need are not turned away. At the foundation of this commitment is substantial evidence of WIC’s positive impacts on the health and development of its participants.”