Release No. 0186.11

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USDA Awards Grants to Reduce Hunger and Improve Nutrition of School-Aged Kids

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2011 — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced investments in three states that will take an important step towards eliminating childhood hunger in America. The grants are awarded to three state agencies to reduce paperwork and expedite certification of students for free meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. The funds are intended to help improve direct certification rates for children in households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Through the process of direct certification, states and local educational agencies automatically enroll children for free school meals without requiring the child's family to complete and return a paper application.

"Improving access to nutrition programs is critical to ending childhood hunger and ensuring that every eligible child is receiving healthy meals during the school day," said Vilsack. "These direct certification grants will help school districts eliminate some of the paperwork involved with the School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, giving more children access to the nutrition they need to grow up and win the future."

These grants, authorized by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2010, will support state agency efforts to plan and implement technology solutions to expedite the certification process for students. State agencies can use grant funds to create ways to identify students eligible for free meals by matching school records with federal assistance program records. USDA's Food and Nutrition Service expects to award additional grants for this purpose to states that meet the eligibility requirements, each fiscal quarter over the next year. The state agencies receiving the FY 2010 Direct Certification grants are:

• Connecticut - $71,462
• New Mexico - $71,717
• North Dakota – $111,744

"These grants can reduce paperwork for families and schools by simplifying the certification process," said USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon. "This funding is a vital part of our strategy to make access to nutritious school meals as easy as possible for children in need, in every school district in the country."

USDA's Food and Nutrition Service oversees 15 nutrition assistance programs that touch the lives of one in four Americans over the course of a year. The programs work together to form a national safety net against hunger. The National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs provide nutritionally balanced, free and low-cost meals to nearly 32 million school children each school day. SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, puts healthy food in reach for more than 44 million Americans each month, half of whom are children.

For more information, visit http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/grants.htm