Aug. 18—Amanda Li Martinez’s kitchen is all about the staples.
Her kids, 4-year-old Ray’Vaun Mitchell and 1-year-old Ari’Yah Li Mitchell, love eggs, milk, yogurt, fruit. Chicken is beloved on anything, with chicken enchiladas on a particularly heavy rotation. And nothing compares with potatoes.
“We go crazy with our potatoes,” said Martinez, a 28-year-old single mom and Santa Fe native.
Martinez has a full-time job at the Women, Infants and Children program’s south Santa Fe office, where she’s worked for three years. But even with her job and the child care help her parents provide, the costs add up: more than $1,800 per month for her apartment, plus bills for her phone, insurance, groceries and more.
“It’s a stretch, most definitely,” she said.
That’s why the WIC benefit Martinez first started receiving when she was pregnant with Ray’Vaun has been so helpful over the years, she said. The benefit pays for a selection of nutritious groceries Martinez uses on a daily basis to feed her kids.
“Whatever else happens, I don’t have to worry about using my money to pay for groceries,” she said. “The kids at least don’t go without any food or milk. … It definitely helps take the load off.”
New Mexico’s WIC program turns 50 this year. It’s come a long way since the 1974 iteration that kicked off with milk and cheese supplements in Albuquerque, said Sarah Flores-Sievers, the WIC and farmers market director through the New Mexico Department of Health.
Today, the federally funded program offers free healthy food, infant formula, nutritional counseling, breastfeeding support and more to those who qualify: low-income women who are pregnant, nursing or raising children up to age 5 who face nutritional risk, as well as foster parents, guardians and single fathers who have custody of their children.
“We offer … any health referrals that we need to support the family,” Flores-Sievers said. “That could be anything from smoking, to dental, domestic violence — we really try to give that warm handoff to our families.”
The program has grown by more basic metrics as well — today, about 52% of all infants in New Mexico are served by WIC, Flores-Sievers said. Those numbers got a boost starting in May 2022, when the state program rolled out a new partnership with the New Mexico Health Care Authority allowing WIC’s system to receive information about applicants from the Medicaid and the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families programs.
“Now, when a family applies to Medicaid, SNAP or TANF, if certain criteria are marked on the back end of their system, they are immediately integrated to our system,” Flores-Sievers said. “We will call them, set an appointment and get them in.”
That change alone has increased the state WIC program’s caseload by 18% since May 2022, Flores-Sievers said — and New Mexico is the first state in the nation to have that level of integration.
New Mexico’s program also has led the nation on the consumer technology front.
In the past, farmers participating in the New Mexico Farmers Market Nutrition Program had to put up with a cumbersome payment system of vouchers that had to be signed and stamped, and were only available in increments of $5.
“Farmers hated it,” Flores-Sievers said. “Actually, everybody hated it because if for some reason … if the stamp wasn’t on it, if there was a missing signature, when they went to the bank to deposit it, they would get a return fee.”
The state in 2021 piloted a mobile-to-mobile transaction platform, making reusable cards with QR codes available as an alternative.
Both options have the added benefit of being more discreet, Flores-Sievers said.
“My thing is, is all of our families deserve the same opportunities and technology that we all have,” she said.
That’s not to say everything in the WIC universe is perfect. Flores-Siever said baby formula shortages have been a real problem in recent years, exacerbated by the exclusive contracts WIC requires with manufacturers.
“We only have two, Abbott and Mead Johnson,” she said. “… That makes it really challenging. We wish we had more flexibility on that.”
Santa Fe resident and WIC recipient Angelique Maez, 34, said she’d like to see a little more flexibility in the benefits themselves, which portion out dollar amounts for specific types of goods.
“I wish they had a bigger allotment for the fruits and vegetables,” said Maez, whose nearly 3-year-old son loves berries, melons and apples. “… When he was 1, we’d get like 5 gallons of milk and we don’t drink that much milk.”
Maez is a part-time caregiver for a family member and her husband is a roofer. They’re expecting a second child in February, and Maez said the benefit has helped her family.
“It’s been really great and helpful,” she said.
Many women who need the WIC benefit have a lot going on in their lives, Amanda Li Martinez said.
She should know — she was one of them. When the St. Michael’s High School graduate got pregnant with her oldest son, she was living in Las Vegas, N.M., working full time and taking a full course load, trying to wrap up the degree she was pursuing at New Mexico Highlands University.
“I graduated from Highlands about six months’ pregnant and then from there I was working full time at [Highlands’] pool until I was about eight months, and then I was working part time at a restaurant,” Martinez said. “I wasn’t making it … with the hours.”
Martinez’s doctor gave her a referral to WIC, which helps her keep things going.
Now in her role as an eligibility interviewer, Martinez said she sees women going through all sorts of experiences, and tries to provide a compassionate atmosphere in the little south-side WIC office on Camino Entrada.
“I have a few clients that have come in pretty much, like, off the streets that are pregnant or have just had babies and don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’ve had moms just sit here and cry. … I tell them, ‘I get it. I’ve been there.’ “
