EVERETT – The Snohomish Health District will take over a nutrition program early next year for more than 17,000 pregnant women, new mothers and children under 5.
Women, Infants and Children, a federal-state program, provides medical screenings and nutrition education, promotes breast feeding and supplies nutritious food for women who meet low-income guidelines.
For example, a single mother with two children making $28,231 a year or less qualifies for the program.
More than half of the families in the program have at least one working family member, according to WIC sources. Slightly more than 400 women and children in the local program are military families.
“The plan is to begin the transition toward the end of the first quarter of 2005,” said Charlene Crow Shambach, assistant director of community health for the Snohomish Health District.
The countywide public health agency is taking over the program from Pregnancy Aid of Snohomish County, a nonprofit group that has administered the program in Snohomish County since the 1970s.
Women currently are served through its offices in Everett, Arlington, Granite Falls, Lynnwood, Marysville, Monroe and Snohomish.
The health district is working with Pregnancy Aid to ensure a smooth transition, Crow Shambach said.
Details of where the Snohomish Health District will provide offices for the program are still being worked out. Participants will be notified as the switchover occurs
“At this point is we plan to use the existing health district site at Lynnwood,” Crow Shambach said. The clinic is at 6101 200th St. SW.
Negotiations also are under way for space next to the health district’s Everett offices at 3020 Rucker Ave., health district spokeswoman Suzanne Pate said.
The health district also plans to open offices for the WIC program in north and east Snohomish County, Crow Shambach said, but the exact locations aren’t yet known.
Cheryl Combest, who has worked in the health district’s tobacco prevention and control program, has been named to manage the local WIC program, with an estimated annual budget of $1.2 million. She will oversee a staff of 12 employees.
Combest previously worked for more than 10 years in for nutrition programs in Africa, include UNICEF, the United Nation’s children’s fund, and the Peace Corps.
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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