The majority of youth and adults on Whidbey Island have enough food, although many families depend on programs that may change under the Trump Administration.

During a meeting of the Island County Community Health Advisory Board last week, Epidemiologists Megan Roorda and Melissa Hartmann discussed food security in a brief presentation.

Food security, they explained, is determined by four pillars: availability, access, utilization and stability. In recent years, less than 10% of Island County tenth graders had to cut meal size or skip meals, according to data from the Healthy Youth Survey. Hartmann noted that differences in food availability and access during the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted responses, especially in 2021, when funding provided more free meals for kids.

Data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey showed that less than 5% of adults in Island County report not having enough food or money, which is about 2% more than the state average. However, Hartmann pointed out that the county does have a smaller number of adults with intermittent food insecurity compared to the state average.

“So there’s a little bit of a nuance in the data there,” she said.

The presentation highlighted community programs that improve food security, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. There are 6.4% of Island County households that receive SNAP benefits. Of that percentage, about half of those households consist of children under the age of 18.

Commissioner Janet St. Clair said SNAP is vulnerable to significant cuts under the new presidential administration. The National Association of Counties is monitoring this, as well as the Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, program. A town hall is planned for District Three, which St. Clair represents, to discuss these topics further.

“Our county certainly does not have the capacity,” she said about stepping in to help the programs in danger. “And the federal cuts to our state are locking in some pretty drastic issues at our state level, where we normally could have leaned back to the state to say, ‘How can we fill the gap?’”

The National School Lunch Program provides low-income families with free and reduced school meals. About 25% to 40% of students in each district qualified for this program over the past six academic years, according to data from the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Oak Harbor had the highest percentage of students that qualified for the program, followed by Coupeville and then South Whidbey. The pandemic also affected this data.

The county’s WIC program served 2,054 individuals in 2023 and provided $1,957 for local farmers markets through the voucher program.

A panel discussion followed the presentation, with farmers and representatives from food banks and other organizations weighing in.