wic. that increases the quality of the foods that are now available, the fruits and vendingables have been out for while -- vegetables. whole wheat and foods that are recommended along with yogurt. so the question is not what is just available but what will the clients choose. so my question is, how are we going to help our clients really go into the market and make the right choices, the nutrition education component? especially as it looks to the people who are the clients to be involved in that educational effort? >> that's a great question. not unlike what sam kass referenced on the school meals. it is one thing to have a healthier menu which we have. but we want that menu consumed. so we incorporated a number of, for example, a practice of offer versus served, instead of just handing a student a plate that has been preselected by somebody in the food line. it is the, we encourage schools universally, give the child or student the opportunity to choose. in the wic program similarly in

our experience with wic stores by the way, nationally there are under 50,000 stores authorized for wic and when we increase that food requirement in wic, now almost three years ago, there was some concern we would lose store participation because we heard the old chess nut of, gee, this community won't buy these foods. they won't support these fruits and vegetables. guess what? i don't think we lost a half dozen stores nationally, and the reports we got consistently across the country was the access for those healthy foods for wic participants at its core very important has had the effect of making those foods available to other residents of those respective communities. it is a way of systemizing, it is not a single answer but it's a helpful answer. that combined with a nutrition education. as you know, wic has a requirement for, to engage the parents, the households, in many of the wic programs across the country, the nutrition education that is available through the s.n.a.p. ed program has been incorporated in or attached to what is being provided to wic households. so it's a combin

and each month the wic program serves 8.6 or 8.7 million mothers, their young children up to age fiveis one of the most important preventive health programs in the whole the right of health and nutrition programs. it's a science-based program but i want to emphasize that because have been various efforts to try to influence something improperly, influence, move us away from the requirement that it be science-based. it's intended to meet the dietary needs of moms, their young children, but aspects of their diet in which they are deficient. it's not meant to cover the complete array of food costs. and i mindful of the fact that about half of the participants in wic also participate in the s.n.a.p. program. so they can buy any of a range of foods with the s.n.a.p. funds, but wic is intended to be prescriptive in nature and we are very committed to maintaining that prescriptive aspect. the biggest challenge we have in the u.s. for american child growing up, most likely period of the year an american child is going to go hungry is the summertime. the principal reason for that is school is

and in order to get this system up and running we asked vendors in the neighborhood all of whom are wic approved vendors if they were willing to participate in the program and we approached 26 vendors with some trepidation. 25 of the 26 vendors wanted to participate in the program. they wanted people coming into buy more fresh produce. it helps with the turn over of perishable foods which they have trouble stocking and they reported it was a benefit to the neighborhood and they wanted to be involved in doing positive things in the neighborhood. the participants who received the vouchers use the vast majority of the money -- meaning that the demand was high and they reported to us and intakes afterwards they increase the fruit and vegetable consumption but that of the children increased as well particularly the 2-5 year olds. this is an example very small of the people were purchasing with the vouchers, oranges, grapes, bananas and avocados and apples and peaches et cetera so healthy products were purchased with the vouchers. there are a number of distinct advantages of using this vouche

we also have the wic program, which is a program that provides food vouchers for our families after they have their children, up to age 5 they are able to receive food vouchers to get milk and cereal for their children. >> it's for the city, not only our clinic, but the city. we have all our children in san francisco should have insurance now because if they are low income enough, they get medical. if they actually have a little more assets, a little more income, they can get happy family. we do have family who come outside of our neighborhood to come on our clinic. one thing i learn from our clients, no matter how old they are, no matter how little english they know, they know how to get to chinatown, meaning they know how to get to our clinic. 85 percent of our staff is bilingual because we are serving many monolingual chinese patients. they can be child care providers so our clients can go out and work. >> we found more and more women of child bearing age come down with cancer and they have kids and the kids were having a horrible time and parents were having a horrible time. how do p

his family there spoke with our affiliate, wics. >> he didn't answer the phone.on his phone. son, call me so i know if you're okay or not. well, never got no call from him. i thought, oh, god, please don't let it be. >> he was just a very honorable, you know, individual. and like i say, i don't think he knew any strangers. everybody that he met, i believe that tim got along with them. >> hearts go out to them, really. and you're supposed to be safe. that's one place you're really supposed to be safe. >> you're right. you're right. >>> breaking news overnight, trees ripped from the ground, homes destroyed, communities under water. millions, millions of you feeling the wrath of this vast storm system, and it's not over yet. indra petersons tracking it all for us next. co: i've always found you don't know you need a hotel room until you're sure you do. bartender: thanks, captain obvious. co: which is what makes using the hotels.com mobile app so useful. i can book a nearby hotel room from wherever i am. or, i could not book a hotel room and put my cellphone back int

when you cut medicaid, when you cut food stamps, s.s.i., wic, these programs disproportionately benefitere programs that benefit mens, say benefits for veterans, active-duty military, are untouched in the ryan budget. so the reason these things resinate is not because of what any individual said, it's because of the underlying policies. >> and congresswoman, part of that is the ryan budget that disproportionately hurts women. it cuts from medicaid, even though 70% of recipients are women, same with food stamps, 63% recipients are women, and pell grants, 62% are women. >> that's right, and i think dana did a great job of highlighting that in his column today. i would say that there's almost a systemic effort now on behalf of my republican colleagues to just cross women off their list. i mean, there's a very small number of women serving in the house that are republicans, and i think they are maybe making a calculated decision, well, we don't need them to retain the majority in the house, and so we're just going to make them fungible. >> now, you know, dana, the outrageous comments being

they're on wic. itself is collecting food over the holidays not to feed the hungry out of the neighborhood but to feed its own associates and there is something very morally wrong with that. here's the irony of it all. if our policymakers in washington answer walmart's call and destroy this social safety net, if they destroy this wonderful environment that walmart is working within now, where would they go to get their workers? because i won't be able to afford to work at walmartfy don't have daycare, if i don't have a daycare subsidy, i don't have food stamps or medicaid. i won't be able to afford to that he job if the social safety net is destroyed. >> the other irony is the percentage of walmart sales to snap recipients. they also rely on those very programs that folks like paul ryan are trying to get rid of. $13.5 billion in snap sales. this ironic we're not going to pay our workers enough to live on but we need the people who don't make enough to live on. >> it is a vicious cycle. walmart isn't

so we have made tremendous progress there, made improvements to the wic program adding fruits and vegetables, nice aground of additional money for fruits and vegetables. so we're getting our kids off to a much that or start. still work to do but we've made some huge inroads. but now those kids are going to enter kindergarten and the work in schools to make sure they're much healthier environment is well under way. and onto the building would look that is okay, that kid is not going to go to school, we will get into that more but also what then happens after school and that critical gap for lots of things, not just nutrition and health, but certainly that is a part of it. so we've worked with the ymca, boys and girls club, parks and rec association to make sure that the foods that are being served in afterschool programs and the amount of activity they're getting is really going to help support and foster their health. so you know, the whole arc of a child's day is getting much healthier. and now we get home and that's where cooking comes in. >> how are you going is to sure how you guys going