FY 2016 WIC Special Project Grants

REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS: WIC Special Project Grants (CFDA#: 10.578)

FNS expects to award approximately $2,000,000 for Special Project Grants to WIC state agencies. There are two types of WIC Special Project Grants: Full Grants and Mini Grants. The grants are to empower WIC state agencies develop, implement, and evaluate new or innovative methods of service to meet the changing needs of WIC participants. The focus area of the FY 2016 WIC Special Project Full and Mini Grants is Retention of Children participating in the WIC Program.

Who May Apply

Grant funds will be available only to the 90 WIC state agencies responsible for administering WIC in the states, Territories, and ITOs. These projects will be awarded as cooperative agreements. FNS encourages smaller state agencies and Indian Tribal Organizations (ITOs) to consider collaborating with other WIC state agencies or ITOs on grant applications.& Individual state agencies may submit only one application for a Full or Mini Grant per year. If a state agency submits an application as part of a consortium of agencies, it may not also submit a separate individual application.

FNS will not consider applications from entities that do not fit these eligibility criteria.

Funding and Duration

The project duration for full grants will be from the date of the award through Sept. 30, 2019. Grantees will be required to present project findings to FNS in Spring, 2020.

The project duration for mini grants will be from the date of the award through Sept. 30, 2018. Grantees will be required to present project findings to FNS in Summer, 2018.

Application Due Date

The completed application package must be uploaded on www.grants.gov at or before 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on June 15, 2016. Applications received after the deadline date will be deemed ineligible and will not be reviewed or considered. USDA will not consider any additions or revisions to an application once it is received. USDA will not accept mailed, faxed, or hand-delivered applications.

Awards

Project Title: Grow with WIC
State Agency: Pennsylvania
Summary: The Pennsylvania WIC Program in conjunction with three local agencies and Penn State University proposes to address the issue of retention of children ages one to four by developing interventions that will complement the guided goal-setting process and ensure that every WIC visit is a positive experience. Entitled “Grow with WIC”, this will be done by 1) Reframing the WIC message so that participants understand it is a 5-year program designed to guide and support parents through the duration of pre-school years and 2) Confronting the barriers to retention that participants face. The interventions will be offered in three WIC clinics using a multi-tiered approach with each level building on the previous one and offering further enhancements.

Project Title: WIC-Head Start: A Recipe for a Healthy Life
State Agency: Georgia WIC Program
Summary: Georgia Department of Public Health seeks funding to implement a pilot project to increase WIC enrollment within targeted Health Districts across the state. through WIC Head Start - A Recipe for a Healthy Life, the Georgia Department of Public Health’s WIC program seeks to reclaim child participants between the ages of 1 and 5 within the State of Georgia. The goal will be achieved through Quality Improvement methods designed to increase caseload. In achieving this goal, Georgia WIC staff will partner with Georgia Head Start in the targeted Health Districts of Macon, Columbus, and Gainesville to increase screening and enrollment rates for eligible children.

Project Title: Increasing Enrollment and Participation of Children in Mississippi WIC
State Agency: Mississippi
Summary: The purpose of this project is to establish a partnership with Head Start programs throughout Mississippi in order to increase enrollment, participation, and retention of WIC eligible children. This intervention will consist of two Phases. In Phase 1, Head Start Project Officers will be hired to secure memorandums of understanding with 2 large Head Start agencies in Mississippi, develop procedures for providing WIC services in Head Start programs.

Project Title: WIC On Wheels- Virginia Mobile Clinic
State Agency: Virginia
Summary: WIC seeks to address the retention problem by making services more readily available to participants. In the past, participants have cited the location of WIC sites, including problems related to distance from home to site, neighborhood safety and transportation as reasons for not participating or remaining in the WIC Program. The WIC On Wheels Virginia Mobile Clinic will be located in the parking lots of local grocery stores and using the ‘meet them where they are’ approach to providing services.

Project Title: The South Carolina Mobile WIC Project
State Agency: South Carolina
Summary: The Mobile WIC Project’s goal is to take WIC services outside of the clinic and meet potential clients within their very own neighborhoods, bringing services to those who need it most. A major component of this project would be the purchase of a Mobile WIC Clinic to serve as a satellite clinic throughout DHEC’s Lowcountry Region – encompassing five of the six counties included in South Carolina’s Promise Zone (Allendale, Bamberg, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties). The agency will use a strategic approach to reach target populations through collaborations with Head Start, the Summer Food Service Program, and a local community organization.

Project Title: The Nutrition Education for Retention Initiative (NERI)
State Agency: Puerto Rico WIC Program
Summary: Low rate of child retention and attendance to nutritional education appointments after their first birthday are significant issues affecting the PR WIC program. The Nutrition Education for Retention Initiative (NERI) was conceived to increase child retention by combining the convenient access to participant centered nutrition education through the use of technology. PR WIC Program wants to develop an educational Website to facilitate the access for parents, caregivers and participants to online nutrition education classes. This functionality will interface with the current paper based system and with the planned EBT system.