The goal of the school meal programs is to provide nutritious meals to children during the school day. Children may receive breakfast and lunch at no cost to them if they are categorically eligible for free meals or if they qualify for free meals based on federal poverty guidelines. Sometimes, however, children who do not qualify based on these standards would like a breakfast or lunch, but do not have money in their account or in-hand to cover the cost of the meal at the time of the meal service.
The purpose of this Request for Information is to help FNS gather feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders on how FNS' crediting system can best address today's evolving food and nutrition environment, as well as to offer first-rate customer service to those operating and benefitting from the child nutrition programs.
This memorandum provides a reminder overview of options available under current program policy and regulation for connecting children and adult survivors, who have evacuated from areas subject to major disaster and emergency declarations, and may be staying in shelters, with child nutrition program benefits.
The purpose of this Request for Information is to help FNS gather feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders on how FNS' crediting system can best address today's evolving food and nutrition environment, as well as to offer first-rate customer service to those operating and benefitting from the child nutrition programs.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA; PL 111-296) required the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to conduct a demonstration that adds Medicaid to the list of programs used to directly certify students for free school meals. Although students receiving Medicaid are not categorically eligible for free meals, the DC-M demonstration authorizes selected States and districts to use income information from Medicaid files to directly certify those students found to be eligible for free meals.
The Departments of Agriculture, Education and Health and Human Services issued a tri-agency letter outlining the categorical eligibility of children and youth in foster care for free school meals.
This memorandum supersedes SP 25-2012, CACFP 12-2012, SFSP 10-2012, Disaster Response and provides an overview of ways state agencies, school food authorities participating can respond to situations resulting from damage or disruptions due to natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and flood as well as other exceptional emergency situations or man-made disasters. Allows state agencies to designate any appropriate facility, which is providing meals to displaced families who are being temporarily housed elsewhere, as a CACFP emergency shelter during a natural disaster or other emergency situation.
This memorandum clarifies the flexibility available to local educational agency officials for establishing the effective date of eligibility for children certified for free or reduced price meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs and free milk in the Special Milk Program based on household applications.