Island health group faces staffing cuts

For the past two and a half years, a Massachusetts nonprofit with funding from the federal government has been providing access to special nutritional services for vulnerable families and infants on the Island. 

The program, called the Women’s, Infants, and Children (WIC) program, had a local liaison who interfaced with Islanders in need of greater food access and financial support. 

But now, for a number of reasons, including the threat of federal funding cuts, the worker who helped the 400 Islanders enrolled in WIC has been laid off. 

“We had to make the very difficult decision to eliminate 10 positions [company-wide],” Julia Kehoe, CEO of Health Imperatives, a nonprofit that provides health services across Southeastern Massachusetts, said in an interview with The Times. “It was related to the growing cost of doing business, and the fact that the WIC program does not cover — or have — enough funding to have staff people in each location.”

Although the position was cut, Health Imperatives maintains that the service will remain on-Island. Instead of an Island resident, the nonprofit will have a staffer provide the service of in-person appointments starting on Friday, May 30. That staffer will come to the Island every other week to conduct interviews and ensure benefits don’t lapse for locals enrolled in WIC. 

The elimination of the position serves as another example of hits to services on the Island from the federal government. And the daily presence of a liaison who helped families increased outreach by more than 15 percent while introducing the WIC service to locals in need. 

The position enabled direct education at places like the West Tisbury library and Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, and established a line of communication for people enrolled in the federal program. According to reports from last year, the position — along with a Portuguese interpreter who in 2024 helped reach out to more ESL (English as second language) Islanders — had very positive results. Health Imperatives was proud of the progress, yet nervous about the federal implications for programs like WIC if Donald Trump was elected president. Now the nonprofit is moving through the reality of that fear, and repercussions are coming to fruition.

Kehoe said Health Imperatives’ decision to eliminate the 10 positions was partly a response to rising health insurance costs for its employees — they have more than doubled in the past three years — as well as bracing for the possibility of federal cuts down the road. 

President Trump recently eliminated the office responsible for federal food programs in the Department of Health, but WIC programs remain funded due to a congressional ruling in March 2025. 

For those who qualify, WIC provides free, healthy food, breastfeeding support, and education to families and their children under 5 years old. The program is aimed at assisting lower-income pregnant and postpartum mothers, their partners, and their children. In Massachusetts, this includes those enrolled in MassHealth, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC). 

Similar to SNAP, those enrolled in WIC receive a card to use for food — from grocery stores to farmstands — allowing for greater food security and reduced health risks associated with poor nutrition.

WIC is one of the only federally funded programs that has zero restrictions on immigration status. There are reportedly a large number of local immigrant families enrolled in WIC on the Island. 

“WIC helps address the health of the whole family, but it doesn’t discriminate based on country of origin or immigration status,” Kehoe said. “It not only helps address hunger and improve outcomes for children and families, but it’s also an economic stimulant for the towns of Martha’s Vineyard, because they’re using benefits to pay for food that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to buy.”

When the project began, Health Imperatives partnered with collaborators that were already addressing food insecurity and vulnerable populations — for example, Island Grown Initiative (IGI) and Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. Programs like WIC help take some pressure off food pantries, and any dip in food security programs inevitably puts more strain on free food initiatives. 

Noli Taylor, co-executive director of IGI, said the WIC program was well-established, and she saw many locals at IGI’s Food Pantry who utilized the service. According to Taylor, it is important that a local is present on the Island to ensure more people are getting the help they need. “It’s really significant to have a person who’s an Islander, and is helping people here,” she said. 

Taylor said the program was a way of increasing safe food access to vulnerable populations — an innovation she said most Islanders can agree is necessary. “At this moment, when so many Islanders are struggling, it’s painful to see any reduction in food support services,” she said. “This is the time for people to speak up and let our elected officials know that we care about food access programs like WIC and like SNAP, and that we want to see them protected in the federal budget.”

But for Health Imperatives, the risk of keeping certain staff members employed outweighed the benefits. In 2024, an 18-month grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, allowing the nonprofit to employ an on-Island worker, ended, and Health Imperatives started using its own funds to continue face-to-face service. But with health insurance costs across the company growing, the expense was too much. 

“All of these innovations have to be funded,” Kehoe said. “Our cost to provide healthcare in one of the most expensive states in the country skyrocketed … For us to be in this position now, where we cannot afford our health insurance costs for the people who are providing care for [individuals and families] who have been disproportionately impacted by discrimination and poverty, is very difficult.”