CWA Accomplishments — 2005
January through June
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Kicked off our Early Years Obesity Prevention Initiative with a dinner and brainstorming
session with experts attending the Child Obesity Summit in San Diego.
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Presented key policy recommendations on Preventing Obesity in Early Years to over 600
attendees at the Working Families Policy Summit.
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Trained our first cohort of WIC Ambassadors to be effective local advocates.
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Provided detailed expert input on the draft IOM Scientific Review of the WIC Food Package.
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Hit Capitol Hill with trained cadre and visited every member of California Delegation
with accurate information and targeted messages.
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Ran interference on three vendor-related bills sponsored by the WIC-Only
Stores: AB 766 (Chavez), AB 1541 (Chavez), and AB 1593 (Coto). All three bills are dead.
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Presented Changing WIC, Changing Lives, a very successful thirteenth Annual
Meeting, in Oakland California.
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Celebrated the achievements of our California Nutrition Corps Scholarship Award
Winners at Taste and Toast to the Future of WIC fundraiser in Oakland. Distributed
$40,000 in scholarship funds in December.
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Educated other state WIC providers about the benefits of effective state WIC
associations at the NWA Conference in St. Louis.
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Mounted our first-ever CWA WIC Policy Day in Sacramento with timely and accurate
information supplied to all members on critical WIC issues.
July through December
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Launched First Smiles, a training and outreach initiative to improve oral health,
funded by state First Five Commission and in partnership with PHFE WIC.
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With Vitamin Settlement funds, completed Starting Earlier . . . Preventing Overweight,
a review of the literature and policy options for Early Years Obesity Prevention,
published in December.
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Successfully underwent a year of staffing challenges, saying "Bon Voyage" to
Executive Director Laurie True, "Good-Bye" to departing Deputy Diane Woloshin,
and "Welcome Aboard" to Administrator Lena Workman, and Communications Coordinator Kinkini
Banerjee. Stalwarts Mary Kabia and Karen Farley stepped up to the plate and helped Diane
keep things ticking while Laurie learned new tricks in Scotland on an Atlantic Public
Policy Fellowship. Whew!
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Working closely with the WIC Branch, launched GO FOR THE GOLD, a short-term strategizing,
marketing and local agency assistance initiative designed to build California WIC Caseload
by 63,000 participants.
- Put together a substantive but fun tech-oriented fall management conference in Palm Springs
that received excellent evaluations from 250 attendees.
- Received a $50,000 planning grant from The California Endowment to assist local providers
of the California Nutrition Network to form an effective statewide association.
- In partnership with the California Breastfeeding Coalition, published a report detailing
hospital breastfeeding practices and their relationship to local breastfeeding rates in
California counties.
- Published five editions of WIC Watch (including a special Go for the Gold Edition), and
continued with bi-weekly WIC Flash, which is popular with non-WIC subscribers.
- Initiated a strong working partnership with the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable
Association to insure that WIC Food Package changes are achieved by 2007.
Looking Back
