ESCANABA –Beginning in March, a program that issues money to women during pregnancy and for the first six months of a baby’s life will launch in the Eastern Upper Peninsula — Luce, Mackinac, Alger, Schoolcraft, and Chippewa Counties. The EUP is the third community to gain access to the program, Rx Kids, which is made possible through public and private partnerships and first launched in Flint in January 2024.

A unique and perhaps unexpected facet of Rx Kids is that it’s not income-based and there are no terms, no limitations on what the money can be used for. When the program opens in the EUP on March 3, all mothers whose babies are born after March 1 will be eligible, and they can choose to put the funds — $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 each month for six months after birth — towards food, diapers, rent, car payments, or anything else.

“This is for everyone, and there is no strings attached, because this is how we best care and love each other. Rx Kids supports moms and babies when they need it most, during their time of economic hardship,” said pediatrician and Rx Kids Director Dr. Mona Hanna, also the associate dean of public health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. “This time of pregnancy and childbirth is actually the poorest in the whole life course, and it is the most important when it comes to child development.”

The program has earned bipartisan support. Both Republican and Democratic politicians attended a Valentine’s Day teleconference with program partners about the launch into the UP and expressed their appreciation.

“Rx Kids in Michigan is such a clear and concrete example of what it means to create the conditions for people to just have a chance at being successful, to have access to a dream of health and wealth for themselves and their families, starting with mothers and children,” said Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II.

“It’s about time we start celebrating our kids,” said State Senator John Damoose. “I’ve had people who came up to me to say, ‘wait a second, you’re a Republican and you’re supporting a cash giveaway to parents?’ Well, of course I do. It’s a great idea. …The studies are very, very clear that if there is a lot of stress and needs don’t get met in that critical time of pregnancy and in that first year of life, there are problems that happen that will plague the children the rest of their lives.”

After being deemed a success in Flint, Rx Kids recently expanded into Kalamazoo, where they received 232 applications in two days. The application was made as straightforward and accessible as possible and is available in English, Spanish and Arabic. Hanna referred to it as a “seamless, plug-and-play” program.

“Rx Kids is already delivering improved economic stability and healthcare use in Flint,” said Laura Keen, U.S. Program Director for GiveDirectly.

Damoose praised Rx Kids’ streamlined system and compared it to other much lengthier processes often used in government. “I just love how you all structured this program … This is so unbelievably efficient. It’s direct money to parents who are the ones in need. It’s funded partially through public dollars, partially through private dollars, so the actual public has skin in the game. It goes right to where the need is. And I don’t see a lot of programs that are just plain that efficient.”

For at least the next two years, Rx Kids — monetary dispersals of which are being referred to not as “grants” but “cash prescriptions” — will be available to residents of the five EUP counties. Past data shows that about 600 babies are born each year on average within the region; the amount of money already held and ready to issue is based on that number.

“We will not launch in a community unless we have at least two years of funding,” said Hanna.

One mother in Sault Ste. Marie, pregnant with her fourth child, will be one of the first to benefit from the EUP expansion. She expressed how helpful Rx Kids will be for her family.

“My husband wasn’t supposed to be able to take any time off after I have the baby, so it was going to be right back on to me as a stay-at-home mom. But then we heard about the program, and we reached out to about it and got more information, and now my husband’s actually going to be able to take a week off of work to help me at home and be able to do things like take my son to school … And if there’s any bills that need to be paid, we’re going to be able to do that still without having to worry about his check,” said Haley Stewart.

Contributors that are helping to fund Rx Kids are the Superior Health Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, the Bezos Family Foundation, the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the Perigee Fund, the William J. & Dorothy K. O’Neill Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Children’s Foundation, the Families and Workers Fund, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Skyline Foundation and many more.

The program is run by Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions and administered by GiveDirectly.

“More potent than any prescribed pill, Rx Kids aims to improve health, hope, and opportunity. Science demonstrates the lifelong consequences of early adversity but also the promise of science-based, community-driven solutions,” read a press release. “Built on the tremendous success of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty to its lowest level in recorded history, and in line with global evidence, Rx Kids boldly reimagines how we care for each other by walking alongside families during the challenging time of pregnancy and infancy.”