SUNBURY -- A public nutrition program is temporarily shutting its doors in Northumberland and Snyder Counties. WIC offices in Sunbury and Selinsgrove are set to close Friday, and they'll stay closed until the state finishes an audit.
Chad Brown took his 3-year-old son Carter for a walk to the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC office in Sunbury. Brown comes to the office once a month to pick up food vouchers for his family.
"It's a walk across town, it's a convenient place for a lot of people, I'm sure," Brown said.
Starting Friday, Brown and around 1,400 other people will need to pick up their vouchers somewhere else. The WIC offices in Sunbury and Selinsgrove will close temporarily. WIC coordinator Brett Campbell blames the situation on an audit of WIC offices around Pennsylvania by the state treasury department. Until the audit is finished, funding for WIC offices is frozen.
"So if we don't receive funding, we can't provide the services. The funding we receive pays for the office space, rent, utilities and obviously the employee staffing too," Campbell said.
The people who normally go to the WIC offices in Sunbury and Selinsgrove will now have to come here to the office near Lewisburg or Shamokin. For people who don't have cars, this could be difficult.
"I don't have my license or anything, so I'm going to have to find a way to get there and get back and make sure I have someone to watch the baby. It's going to be a bit of an inconvenience for me," Brown said.
WIC is a federal program administered by the state. Those WIC offices near Lewisburg and Shamokin will have limited hours until the state audit is finished.
"About 36 office hours and taking it down to five, so access to receiving those services will be affected," Campbell said.
The WIC offices in Sunbury and Selinsgrove will close on Friday. Again, once the statewide audit is finished and the funding is available again, the offices will reopen. As of now, it is unclear when that will happen.