The Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program was designed to improve the health of women with families. The service provides nutrition education, breastfeeding promotion and support, foods, and referrals to other health care programs.

For years, the WIC program distributed paper checks to qualifying women to use at grocery stores. Their WIC items had to be separated from the rest of their items at the checkout.

Bev Frizell, with the Barton County Health Department, says all that changed last spring with the creation of the WIC debit card.

Bev Frizell Audio

Frizell says women and children can come into the Health Department to find out of if they qualify for the WIC program, which is based on family size and income. Each month, your family’s WIC food benefits will be deposited onto your card.

When it comes time to pay for the groceries at the store, WIC participants just swipe their card which will clear all the WIC items from their bill, and then they can pay for the remaining groceries.

Bev Frizell Audio

There are approximately 650 WIC program participants in Barton County.