Serving children for 25 years; food stamps have made a difference, say officials in one of the first food stamp counties

Serving Children For 25 Years...

In a quarter of a century, much hasremained unchanged in eastern Kentucky. Coal mining is still the primary industry; unemployment is still high; and many area residents still get by on very little income. One thing that has changed for the better, however, is the health of the region's children.

The era that brought about improvedhealth and nutrition for Kentucky's children began in 1961 in Floyd County, where a pilot food stamp program started. Floyd County was one of eight "economically depressed" areas of the country chosen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to test the effectiveness of food stamps as a means of providing additional nutrition to needy persons.

Before 1961, Floyd County operatedUSDA's Needy Family Program, distributing monthly packages of surplus commodities to low-income county residents. The packages at that time consisted primarily of stapletype items, such as flour, corn meal, and powdered milk. Participants did not receive any meats or fruits and vegetables. Families with no money subsisted entirely on the commodities and whatever fresh food they could grow.

Children suffered

from many problems

Earl Compton, director of the FloydCounty Health Department has worked for the department since 1955. He recounts how children's health has changed since the late 1950's and early 1960's.

"There were numerous cases ofnutrition-related illnesses then. The only food children got was what their parents could raise and can at home. Some families received surplus foods, but not everybody who needed the food participated in the program," he says.

"Children got enough food to survive,but they weren't getting a balanced diet. Some were going to school hungry."

The county health departmenttreated cases of children with rickets (a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency), many cases of intestinal parasites, and various other nutrition-related illnesses in those years.

"Now we don't see nearly as manynutrition problems," Compton says. "The outlook for children today in terms of health and nutrition, as compared to 25 years ago, is almost like the difference between daylight and dark. The need was so great back then, and we had so few resources to tap."

The resources began to expand onJune 1, 1961, when the Food Stamp Program was launched in Prestonsburg, the county seat of Floyd County. A host of dignitaries, including former Kentucky Governor Bert Combs and U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Frank J. Welch, were present whe the county's first food stamps were issued to a mother with two children.

Seventy-five families received foodstamps by the close of the first day, and by the end of June, more than a thousand families, comprising 6,000 persons, had participated in the new program.

Bonnie Bradley, a principalcaseworker specialist with the Floyd County Department for Social Insurance, came to work for the agency the year the Food Stamp Program started.

"I began work as a clerk, and I sawmost of the children who came into the office. I noticed their thinness, as if they hadn't had a good meal and their sunken eyes," she recalls. "After the program operated a while, the children looked better. They weren't as lifeless.

"I think they're better off now," sheadds. "In addition to getting food stamp benefits, their parents are better educated and know what foods to give children. You can see the difference in the children every day."

From the beginning

food stamps helped

As part of the evaluation of the pilotfood stamp project operting in Floyd County and the seven other areas, the Department of Agriculture assessed the impact of the program on retail food sales, household food consumption patterns, and diets of participating families.

Findings from that assessment providedevidence that what Bradley observed about children's improved health was due to better diets resulting from the Food Stamp Program.

After the program began in FloydCounty, retail food sales there increased 11.6 percent. Meat sales alone increased 10.3 percent, and produce sales rose 11 percent.

In the two pilot areas surveyed forfood consumption and dietary changes, participating families spent substantially more money per person for food--particularly for dairy and meat products and fruits and vegetables--after they joined the Food Stamp Program.

Also, considerably more low-incomefamilies participating in the Food Stamp Program had good diets than did low-income families who were not participating. (A good diet was defined as one which supplied the families with 100 percent or more of the required daily allowances for each of eight nutrients.)

Nutrition education played an importantpart in Kentucky's first food stamp program. Carl Horn, a lifelong resident of Prestonsburg and the first food stamp issuance supervisor for the county, says that many food stamp recipients in the county in 1961 had rarely, if ever, shopped for food in grocery stores. What food they had, other than USDA commodities, they grew or bought from neighbors.

According to Horn, the food stampproject taught familieis how to shop. Staff from the Floyd County Agricultural Extension Office conducted nutrition education classes for food stamp recipients each month at the local issuance office, and the food stamp office staff provided nutrition education materials to clients as well.

The success of food stamps in theeight pilot areas led to expansion. By 1964, pilot programs were operating in 40 counties, including two more eastern Kentucky counties--Knott and Perry. The first food Stamp Act was passed in 1964, and the program continued to grow. Today it is available in every county in the United States.

Along with the national growth of theprogram, Floyd County's food stamp participation doubled over the years, from 6,000 people in June 1961 to nearly 12,000 people 25 years later. About 50 to 60 percent of the people currently receiving food stamps in Floyd County are children.

Several food programs

are now available

What is Floyd County like today? Inmany ways, the situation is brighter now than in 1961.

"We have more businesses, betterroads, and better education. There are still periods of economic setbacks, especially in the mining industry, but I don't hear of cases of hunger today," says Charles Hackworth, food stamp supervisor for Floyd County.

Hackworth estimates that in FloydCounty, with a population of 50,000, about one-half of the residents have been helped in some way by the Food Stamp Program at one time or another. He says that few participants remain on the program for a long time, that is, 3 or 4 years. Most get jobs, leave the program, and then come back for 6 months or so when they fall on hard times.

"I believe the Food Stamp Programhas kept children from going hungry," says Hackworth, citing periods of high unemployment and fmailies with no income at all, but he does not attribute all the improvements in children's nutritional status solely to the program.

He points out that the NationalSchool Lunch and Breakfast Programs and the special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) contribute significantly to children receiving proper diets. Others in the community agree.

In the 1960's, free and reduced-pricemeals began to be offered to needy children in Kentucky schools. According to Wayne Ratliffe with the Floyd County Department of Education, about 60 percent of the children participating in the county's school lunch program today receive either free or reduced-price lunches. The vast majority of these students, Ratliffe believes, are from families who also receive food stamps.

"We have some families with zero income,"he says. "To keep children from those families from going hungry, we feed them both breakfast and lunch and all they can eat at both meals."

WIC program also

plays key role

The first WIC program in the nationbegan in nearby Pineville, Kentucky, in 1974. Floyd County joined the program in 1977.

"The WIC program is making a big,big difference in the quality of children's health at birth," says Earl Compton.

WIC provides specially prescribedfood packages to pregnant and breastfeeding women, and to infants and young children. Because the program is administered through county health agencies, it draws many women in for prenatal care that they might not otherwise receive early in their pregnancies. The foods and nutrition guidance provided through WIC increase their chances of having healthy babies.

Greta Adkins is one young motherwho has been helped by both WIC and the Food Stamp Program. ADkins, who is 19, left the hospital after the birth of her second child in July and went directly to the Floyd County Health Department to keep an appointment with the WIC staff.

When she applied for WIC benefitsbefore her first child was born, she was anemic and undernourished. She began receiving WIC foods for herself and later for her baby daughter as well.

The December after her daughterwas born, she and her family began receiving foods stamps. When her son James was born, Adkins said she felt much better after being on the WIC program for 2 yeas and receiving food stamps for several months. James a healthy alert little boy, weighed more than 7 pounds at birth.

"Children have a

better chance now"

Like Greta Adkins, Carter Hamiltonhas been helped by the food programs. Hamilton, the father of three sons, has been unable to work for 6 years because of a disability. Until his wife found a job, the family was totally without income, receiving food stamps as their sole means of support. Mrs. Hamilton is now employed full time, but the family continues to receive some food stamps because of their limited income.

"The Food Stamp Program helps usa great deal," says Hamilton. "Without it, my boys wouldn't be as well-nourished as they are. My wife doesn't earn enough to buy food, and growing boys could eat all day long."

The two youngest boys, Bradley, 9,and Anthony, 8, received WIC benefits as babies, and all three children participate in the school lunch program.

Hamilton's parents received foodstamps when he was in high school, but he can remember what it was like before the county had food stamps or WIC.

"Children have a better chance nowbecause of these programs," he says. "If this had happened to me back then, the children would have had a hard time."

For Greta Adkins, Carter Hamilton,and countless others in Floyd County, the Food Stamp Program and the programs that followed it have improved the quality of their children's lives. Says Charles Hackworth, "The Food Stamp Program is one of the best programs that ever came to our county."

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