BOSTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is recognizing 103 WIC clinics, among 10,000 nationally, with WIC Breastfeeding Awards of Excellence for work being done to help moms and babies successfully breastfeed.
Day Kimball Hospital WIC Program is one of three in Connecticut being recognized. The Premiere award recognizes 32 percent of moms fully or partially breastfeeding
The other two are: Optimus Health Care WIC Program in Bridgeport, Gold: and Meriden WIC, Gold.
“The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) is thrilled to have three Connecticut local WIC agencies selected for the 2024 WIC Breastfeeding Awards of Excellence, including Day Kimball Hospital, which was selected for the Premiere Award, the first in Connecticut,” said DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD.  “Being selected is an honor and demonstrates the exemplary support available to WIC participants to ensure they meet their breastfeeding goals.”
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children known as WIC is one of the nation’s 16 federal nutrition programs. WIC aims to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, breastfeeding promotion and support, and referrals to health care and social services.
WIC Breastfeeding Awards of Excellence are given at three levels of performance that build on one another: Gold, Premiere, and Elite. In Connecticut, the awardee clinics are using peer counselors, a mom-to-mom mentorship, to provide prenatal and postpartum education and family support to clients, and in Putnam, the hospital is collaborating with organizations such as Pacify to connect WIC clients to a network of doulas, lactation consultants and registered nurses in-person and virtually.
“These awards highlight the importance of breastfeeding as the best source of nutrition for a baby’s first year of life,” said USDA Food and Nutrition Service Regional Administrator Lizbeth Silbermann. “With WIC serving about 40% of babies born in the country, local WIC program staff, who provide breastfeeding education and support to mothers, are key to helping moms that want to breastfeed do so successfully.”

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Black-eyed Susans. Linda Lemmon photo.
 

4 students complete CorePlus Credit
Union summer internship program
NORWICH — Four interns successfully completed the CorePlus Credit Union Summer Internship Program. The CPCU Summer Internship Program provides participants with valuable real world work experience in a financial institution. This year, CorePlus hosted Shelbie Desir and Iris Tang from Norwich Free Academy and Mercy Reynoso Germosen and Claudy Baron from New London High School.
Beginning on June 28th, CorePlus summer interns completed daily duties ranging from teller transactions to assisting in various consumer lending departments. They continuously developed skills including but not limited to customer service, cash handling, personal finance, sales, time management, organization, conflict resolution, basic lending, accounting, and quality control.
CorePlus has hosted students from two of the area’s largest high schools for 18 years. The program began in 2006 when the Director of Diversity at NFA and the CorePlus president at the time had a casual conversation about the lack of diversity in Norwich area financial institutions. They decided on the spot that an internship program could be the way to change that.
Since then, over 90 high school students have successfully completed the program. Four current CorePlus employees, including its CFO and one Branch Officer, are graduates of the internship program.
CorePlus staff strive to mimic their traditional new hire process as closely as possible for the program. Students are selected for the internship based upon their interview skills, complete a new hire orientation, and are reviewed using an abbreviated version of our performance appraisal. The interns are placed in branches and departments based on their interviews and areas of interest, and supervisors are encouraged to give them the same duties given to regular employees.
Mercy Reynoso Germosen said, “My summer internship at CorePlus Credit Union was a great experience full of laughter, knowledge, and a welcoming environment from the very beginning — during our training with Kristen — to the end at the Groton branch with Briana, Brenda, and Melissa. As a recent high school graduate, I would recommend going for this internship — especially if you’re going into the finance field; if given the chance to, I would definitely do this internship again.”
Claudy Baron expressed a similar sentiment, stating, “I’m truly grateful that I was able to have the opportunity to participate in this program. This internship has refined several of my skills, and I feel it has made me better prepared for my future. I was able to work on my customer service and communication skills, my knowledge on finance has been broadened, and I had a great experience with my team, the members, and even the work I did.”
All CorePlus Summer Internship applicants must be at least 16 years old, have strong customer service skills, possess the ability to work with various technical platforms, and work well on teams and independently. Successful participants may be eligible for full or part-time employment with CorePlus following completion of the program.

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