The Florida Department of Health Leon County has partnered with the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children to provide the Farmers’ Market Nutrition program coupons for qualified WIC participants along with resuming a produce market.
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About 2,700 families in Leon County rely on vegetable and fruit benefits through a federal nutrition program known as WIC. Now, those benefits are being temporarily expanded.
A federal nutrition program for low-income women who ve recently given birth will temporarily expand its vegetable and fruit cash benefits to $35 a month per participant. Previously, the benefit was capped at $11 a month per mother and $9 a month per child under age 4.
Dykibra Gaskin is the public health nutrition program director for Leon, Franklin, Wakulla, Madison, Jefferson, and Taylor counties. She says more than 4,000 families in the area will benefit from the change.