Child Nutrition Discretionary Grants Limited Availability

National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Equipment Assistance Grants are competitively awarded subgrants to local educational agencies and schools to purchase equipment, with a value of greater than $1,000, needed to serve healthier meals, improve food safety, and to help support the establishment, maintenance, or expansion of the School Breakfast Program. Direct Certification Improvement Grants are awarded to assist States agencies in improving their direct certification processes and rates. Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children demonstrations develop and test innovative methods of providing access to food for children during the summer months when schools are not in regular session to reduce or eliminate the food insecurity and hunger of children, and improve the nutritional status of children. Participating States and Tribal Nations provide Summer EBT food benefits on debit cards to eligible low-income families with school-age children during the summer months, giving them more resources to use at retail food stores. Healthy Meals Incentives Recognition Awards and Sub-Grants for School Food Authorities is a cooperative agreement between USDA and Action for Healthy Kids to improve the nutritional quality of school meals. Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative Supplemental Marketing and Communications is a cooperative agreement between USDA and Action for Healthy Kids to implement marketing and communications efforts to foster the sharing of best practices among School Food Authorities across the country as they implement the school meal standards in the Final...

Agencies participating in the school meals programs, 501c3 organizations.

Applications are initially reviewed for eligibility and sufficiency, as defined in the RFA/NOFA. Those applications that meet the criteria are reviewed by a technical panel based on specific criteria outlined in the RFA/NOFA. The panel makes recommendations to the selecting official based on scoring results. The selecting official makes the final award decisions.

This program has no statutory formula. Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Fiscal Year2025: Equipment grant funding was used to support the purchase of equipment in the school meals programs.