This guidance updates previously issued Questions and Answers to clarify SFSP requirements. It supersedes SFSP 05-2017, Summer Food Service Program Questions and Answers, Dec. 1, 2016.
Attached to this memorandum, please find a revised edition of the Prototype Application for Free and Reduced Price School Meals, with an accompanying instructions document. These materials may be adapted for direct use by state and local agencies, or as a reference for designing an effective application packet that meets all statutory and regulatory requirements.
The purpose of this memorandum is to revise guidance on rural designations in the Summer Food Service Program and the National School Lunch Program’s Seamless Summer Option (SSO). The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 authorized a permanent non-congregate meal service option through the SFSP and SSO for children who live in rural communities with no congregate meal service. This memorandum supersedes SFSP policy memorandum SFSP 17-2015, Rural Designations in the Summer Food Service Program – Revised, April 21, 2017.
This guidance provides resources that state agencies may use when considering next steps and set forth instructions for submitting state plan amendments that involve operational changes such as electronic solution proposals and/or WIC FMNP waiver requests.
These questions and answers provide guidance for recently published transitional standards for milk, whole grains and sodium.
This guidance contains information to help WIC state agencies plan for meeting the needs of WIC participants and potential, newly-eligible WIC applicants prior to and during a disaster response. It can also be used to plan for continued WIC operations during emergencies or other situations of distress. The information is designed to assist headquarters and regional office staff, as well as WIC state and local agency staff in their development of an executable WIC disaster plan
FNS has used its authority under FFRCA to waive certain onsite monitoring requirements for the school meals programs, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the Summer Food Service Program, so that programs can to maintain program integrity and support social distancing while providing meals.
FNS is committed to supporting WIC state agencies that are pursuing online ordering and online transactions. Bringing these shopping innovations to our participants is expected to improve the WIC shopping experience, increase equity in the program by allowing participants to shop like all other shoppers, and increase WIC benefit redemptions.
Under Section 118 of this Continuing Resolution, USDA is directed during the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 (Oct. 1, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2021) to temporarily increase the WIC Cash-Value Voucher/Benefit (CVV/B) for fruit and vegetable purchases for women and children participants to an amount recommended by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) and adjusted for inflation.
This memorandum includes questions and answers intended to provide clarification to state agencies and program operators as they operate the child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, NSLP Seamless Summer Option and Child and Adult Care Food Program, during SY 2021-22.