SAULT STE. MARIE — After six months, the Rx Kids program is going strong and has already helped hundreds of families in Chippewa County, and the Sault Tribe is hoping to help broaden that impact.
On Wednesday, Aug. 20, the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians made a $200,000 donation to the program so it could continue to help families in the Eastern Upper Peninsula and beyond.
Rx Kids reached Chippewa County in March as the first ever community-wide cash prescription program for babies and pregnant women. The program works by giving cash directly to families who are about to give birth or have recently had a child.
“This is a bold effort to eliminate maternal and infant poverty. This is the time in people’s lives when they are the poorest and it’s also the most developmentally vulnerable time,” said Mona Hanna, a pediatrician and director of Rx Kids. “What happens in this brief window really shapes your entire life course, and we can do better at caring for each other.”
Expecting mothers can receive $1,500 before giving birth and $500 a month for six months after their baby is born. The intention is to help new parents in the most direct way possible, by giving them cash with no strings attached. Officials said the money helps with needs like housing, baby supplies, food and other necessities.
The idea behind the program is that unconditional money is the best way to support new families instead of making complicated requirements in order to receive help. According to Rx Kids, one of the main inspirations for the program was a child tax credit that helped families during the COVID-19 pandemic. The families received unconditional cash to help their families and, as a result, child poverty dropped.
“When I first heard about this I thought ‘You can’t want me to support cash giveaways to people, I’m a Republican, we don’t support these types of things,’” said State Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) at a discussion panel for Rx Kids in Sault Ste. Marie on Wednesday. “The bottom line, is we as legislators are tasked with creating the best environment we can for the most number of our citizens, and there’s nobody in our society more vulnerable than children and pregnant mothers. The deeper I got into the details of this program I realized what a stroke of genius it really is.”
The program first began in Flint in January 2024. The Flint program has an almost 100% uptake rate, meaning almost every new family in the city has been helped by the program.
In the six months the program has been active in Chippewa County, 323 families have been helped, around a quarter of them being Native American families. Surveys from Rx Kids show that participants have a more stable home environment and that caregivers are dealing with less stress.
Juliana, born March 8, is the daughter of Sault Tribe member Haley Stewart. She was one of the first children in the EUP to receive help through the program. The extra funds allowed for Stewart’s husband to take time off of work right after she had given birth so that he could help in the first few weeks, something they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.
“At first I was concerned that it wasn’t going to be real because something like this is just not heard of in our community,” said Stewart. “If it wasn’t for this, I wouldn’t have had such an easy time with recovery and recuperating because my husband was able to take off work and be there for me and that was huge for us.”
More than 80% of participating parents in the region reported that the program helped them financially and almost 70% said the program helped their infant’s health.
There are no requirements to qualify for the program and no restrictions on what the money can be used for. Parents reported the top five things they used the extra money on were baby supplies, food, utilities, rent and clothing.
The program is funded mostly by donations from organizations like the Sault Tribe. In total, it has received more than $100 million from various groups across the state.
More information about the program and applications can be found at rxkids.org.
— Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@Sooeveningnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Sault News: ‘A stroke of genius’: RX Kids program making big difference for EUP families
Reporting by Brendan Wiesner, Sault Ste. Marie News / The Sault News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
