Serving Queen Anne & Magnolia Since 1919 OCTOBER 29, 2025
www.QueenAnneNews.com
VOL. 106, NO. 44
WA’s Food Aid Program for Infants and Mothers Now Funded Through Most of November
The news Thursday was a relief to advocates for the Women, Infants and Children program, known as WIC By Jake Goldstein-Street Washington State Standard
F
ederal food benefits for Washington mothers and their babies at risk due to the federal government shutdown will continue into mid-to-late November, the state announced Thursday. Funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow the state to keep up food benefits under the Women, Infants and Children program, known as WIC, and support the 11 workers still administering it in Washington. “It’s definitely a relief,” said Nicole Flateboe, executive director of Nutrition First, the state’s WIC association. “It’s food benefits through Thanksgiving, hopefully.” The estimate of assistance lasting until mid-to-late November is based on current use. If enrollees start increasing their usage, the funding could run out sooner, according to the state Department of Health. An agriculture department spokesperson said Thursday that the agency “utilized tariff revenue to fund WIC for the foreseeable future.” It was unclear exactly how much money the feds were providing. WIC benefits have been among the most vulnerable to the ongoing shutdown. When
the shutdown began Oct. 1, the state had about two weeks’ worth of funding to keep feeding low-income Washingtonians enrolled in WIC. Redirected tariff revenue from the Trump administration is allowing states to get through October, but that $300 million infusion would only last through the end of the month.
“Meanwhile, funding for federal food stamps - a program that is separate from WIC is set to run dry at the end of October.” In Washington, over 200 clinics serve more than 212,000 women and their children younger than 5 years old annually under the WIC program, according to the state. WIC helps nearly one-third of all newborn babies. Nationally, the program serves nearly 7 million Americans. WIC helps mothers with access to healthy food, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and health screenings. Research has
shown participation in the program helps avoid low birth weights and reduce maternal mortality. The new money announced Thursday is focused on food benefits, not the program’s other services.
Earlier this month, King County and Seattle officials promised that the nearly 30,000 enrollees there would receive one-time vouchers for food and baby
WIC, 8
Last Night’s Dinner Party Was Just Plain Awful. The Worst.
N
o matter how hard I try, I cannot ignore what happened last night. My writer’s mind ponders, laughs at, and ultimately rejects everything else I try to say. I cannot write my pages today without telling this story . . . While setting the table and lighting the candles it had started off feeling like the sort of evening when you feel nothing can go wrong. I was throwing a little dinner for a friend who brought someone, someone I didn’t know, and while my friend’s generous nature filled every inch of my kitchen, it soon became clear that Mary Lou I was noSanelli where near Falling left leaning Awake enough for her friend who asked a question that I have never found a way to answer gracefully. To some, my answer proves I am not liberal enough. To others, it demonstrates, without a sliver of patience, that I am not conservative enough to be taken seriously. What a minefield these labels have made of us. While trying to stay focused on the homecooked meal I was trying to pull off, I answered her question as honestly as I could a little afraid, and defensive, and proud, all at once. There, I thought, I have said what I think, and I know my opinion will come off as politically incorrect to you. She looked at
me and a frown formed. And we both know it can take no more than a subtle shift of one’s smile to ruin a perfectly good evening. On the written page I go in deep, but with strangers, who knows how far you can go before you’ve gone too far?
“What a minefield these labels have made of us.” But what I didn’t remember until rereading this is that she arrived without a hostess gift of any kind, which I never think is too much to ask for someone who has gone through the effort of hosting. Maybe it’s just an Italian thing, but my mother drilled it into me to always arrive with something, a little something, you must. This alone made me wonder if her presence would take more than give. And sure enough, somewhere between the salad and the pasta we sort of lost control of the détente we had silently agreed to. The worst part was seeing how sorry my friend looked for bringing someone who was determined to set me straight. I know you don’t need straightening, her eyes seemed to say. I could also see how hard she was trying to stay safely in the middle because she is the most generous person you ever want to meet. No. Really. Generosity owes its very existence to people like her. I know it’s been said that good things emerge out of the bad, but I think I will always remember last night’s dinner as just plain awful. The worst. PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
SEATTLE, WA PERMIT 1271
Luckily, when you find yourself needing to escape your worst moments, there is always a good walk to look forward to. So I take one. More specifically, I take a long one. Along the way, I call my sister because I am dying to tell her about last night, but she doesn’t pick up. So I call again. I do the same thing for the next ten minutes, call my sis, walk for bit, call my sis, walk on. Stop it, I hear myself say. For god’s sake. You don’t have to talk about it. But the other half of me knows better. To this day, I don’t know why it helps us so much to hash over anything that upsets us, stresses us, or brings us joy, my sister and I, but we do, so this time I leave a message, call me back! The longest twenty minutes passed, and then she called and what a fun time we had rehashing my terrible dinner party. The secret of happiness! Later, it dawns on me that more stories like this, of-standing-up-for-my-beliefs, are likely to come—because they will come. And it’s anybody’s guess whether I’ll handle them graciously or flounder like I did last night when I felt like a scratching post in my own kitchen, but my friends say that one of the things they love most about me is my resilience. I like the sound of that. But to cope with governance that seems hellbent on breeding animosity and chaos,
we will need more than resilience, we will need to read our country’s history closely; the world’s even closer. We will need to remind ourselves how 3D leadership—deceit, double-dealing, duplicity—has been many a leader’s method, and let this fact tear through us like a shot of something good and strong. Because, hey, you know what? Dividing us is part of the plan. Knowing this just might help us through. Still, there is no way I can easily wrap my brain around “divide and conquer,” as the saying goes. It demands more than resistance, it demands consideration, more than we seem to have left in reserve. But we (I refuse to say “both sides” because the most well-adjusted people I know are clearly in the middle and prefer to take things issue by issue) will have to get through the next three years together. And arguing is getting us nowhere. Having said that, one of the other necessary things we (or some of us, anyway) will have to practice is forgiving ourselves when we fail. Mary Lou Sanelli’s latest title is In So Many Words. She works as a writer, speaker, and master dance teacher. Contact her at marylou@olympus.net. For more information visit www.marylousanelli.com.