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. Administrative Review and Training (ART) grants are awarded to State agencies to conduct additional administrative reviews of selected local educational agencies and to provide funding for state agencies to be used for oversight and training of administrative personnel on application, certification, verification, meal counting, and meal claiming procedures. Direct Certification Improvement Grants have been previously 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. Grants to Improve Health and Nutrition were previously available to State agencies for projects that were aimed at improving the health and wellness of children in child care settings. School Breakfast Expansion grants are available to eligible State agencies to provide sub-grants to local educational agencies for qualifying schools to establish, maintain, or expand the School Breakfast Program. Meals to You is a cooperative agreement between USDA and the Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty to provide crucial nutrition to eligible children nationwide who live in rural areas where traditional congregate SFSP sites have historically been unsuccessful due to the lack of transportation. This project expanded to address the needs of eligible children affected by COVID-19 school closures.

Active 10.579 Food and Nutrition Service, Department of Agriculture B - Project Grants Fiscal Year 2016 ART Grants: No current data available. DC Grants: 2 States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. USDA awarded Equipment grants to 54 State agencies. USDA awarded five (5) ART grants to the following states: Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey and Nevada USDA awarded six (6) DC grants to the following states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, California, District of Columbia and Maryland. USDA awarded School Equipment grants to State agencies
Fiscal Year 2018 (Refer to the USDA FNS Child Nutrition Programs website) Direct Certification Grants: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/2018-direct-certification-improvement-grant-summaries Administrative Review and Training (ART) Grants: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/fy2016-method-ii-art-grant-summaries NSLP Equipment Grants: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2016/003416 Summer EBT: https://www.fns.usda.gov/ops/summer-food-children-demonstrations and https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/sebtcfinalreport.pdf
Fiscal Year 2019 Refer to the USDA FNS Child Nutrition Programs website: For ART Grant Summaries: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/fy%202019-art-grant-summaries
Fiscal Year 2023 Since 2009, USDA has awarded $471 million in school nutrition equipment grants, including $30 million being announced in July 2023. USDA provides this funding to states via formula, which then competitively award grants to school districts in order to purchase necessary equipment. 42 U.S.C. 1751, 1758, 1759a,1761, 1765, 1766, 1769, 1772, 1773, 1779
Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 1751, 1758, 1759a,1761, 1765, 1766, 1769, 1772, 1773, 1779; School Breakfast Program (SBP); Child Nutrition Act of 1966, as amended, Public Laws 108-265, 104-193, 100-435, 99-661, 97-35; Special Milk Program (SMP); Child Nutrition Act of 1966, as amended; Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP); 89 Stat. 522-525, Summer Food Service Program (SFSP); Public Law 111-5. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (Public Law 117-328) Determined by the legislation authorizing the grants. Determined by the legislation authorizing the grants. Not applicable. Preapplication coordination is not applicable. 2 CFR 200, Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards applies to this program. For ART, SBEG and DC grants, application package must be submitted electronically via http://www.grants.gov. Note: NSLP Equipment grants are not submitted via grants.gov. For Summer EBT grants, application package must be submitted electronically via http://www.grants.gov. Upon receipt of an application from an interested party a review is performed by the agency for eligibility and sufficiency of the Request For Applications (RFA) requirements. Subsequently, all acceptable applications are objectively reviewed by a technical panel according to established criteria set forth in the RFA. The panel makes award recommendations based on the scoring results. The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) selecting official then makes the final award decisions. Contact the headquarters or regional location, as appropriate for application deadlines Selection of applicants for a grant award can take from 2 to 5 months depending on the number of applications that are received. Refer to the RFA for information. Refer to the RFA for information regarding renewals. Applications are initially reviewed for eligibility and sufficiency, as defined in the RFA. Those applications that meet the criteria are reviewed by a technical panel based on specific criteria outlined in the RFA. The panel makes recommendations to the selecting official based on scoring results. The selecting official makes the final award decisions. Assistance can be used for specific activities authorized by Child Nutrition legislation or regulation. In the past this has included grants to state agencies to assist local educational agencies in improving application, certification and verification, and meal counting and meal claiming procedures; grants to State agencies to improve their direct certification processes and rates; and grants to improve program access, health, and wellness of children. There may be restrictions, as required by legislation or regulation. Less than one percent of Child Nutrition funds are set aside for discretionary grants. Not applicable. 2 CFR Part 400: USDA's implementing regulation of 2 CFR Part 200 "Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards" State agencies must maintain records as necessary to support the use of grant funds in accordance with the grant agreement. Such records must be retained for a period of 3 years after the date of submission of the final report for the fiscal year to which the records pertain, except that if audit findings have not been resolved, the records must be retained beyond the 3-year period as long as required for the resolution of the issues raised by the audit. Statutory formula is not applicable to this assistance listing.

Matching requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing. The period of performance of the grants vary based on project plan. Grant period of performance is generally from 1 year to 4 years. Extensions to the period of performance must be approved by FNS. Method of awarding/releasing assistance: Letter. See the Food and Nutrition Service Regional Offices listed in Appendix IV of the Catalog. Melissa Rothstein
Food and Nutrition Service
Braddock Metro Center II
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314 US
Messissa.Rothstein@usda.gov
Phone: 703-346-4484 http://www.fns.usda.gov 12-3539-0-1-605 (Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22$30,000,000.00; FY 23 est $30,000,000.00; FY 24 FY 21$30,000,000.00; FY 20$30,000,000.00; FY 19$30,000,000.00; FY 18$30,000,000.00; FY 17$30,000,000.00; FY 16$30,000,000.00; - School Lunch (NSLP) Equipment Grants(Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21$2,000,000.00; FY 20$0.00; FY 19$0.00; FY 18$2,011,426.00; FY 17$0.00; FY 16$1,550,000.00; - Direct Certification Grants (Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21 FY 20$0.00; FY 19$4,000,000.00; FY 18$4,000,000.00; FY 17$4,000,000.00; FY 16$4,000,000.00; - Administrative Review and Training Grants(Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21 FY 20$0.00; FY 19$0.00; FY 18$0.00; FY 17$0.00; FY 16$0.00; - Improve Health and Nutrition - no grants were awarded for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 or expected for 2020.(Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21 FY 20$0.00; FY 19$0.00; FY 18$0.00; FY 17$0.00; FY 16$0.00; - School Breakfast Expansion, no grants were awarded for 2020. The last time grants were awarded was 2013.(Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21 Estimate Not Available FY 20$29,000,000.00; FY 19$31,000,000.00; FY 18$22,844,000.00; FY 17$25,181,000.00; - Summer EBT for Children (SEBTC)(Cooperative Agreements (Discretionary Grants)) FY 22 FY 23 FY 24 FY 21 FY 20$185,000,000.00; FY 19$0.00; - Meals to You(Project Grants (Discretionary)) FY 22$30,000,000.00; FY 23 est $30,000,000.00; FY 24 FY 21$30,000,000.00; - (Cooperative Agreements (Discretionary Grants)) FY 22$5,130,000.00; FY 23 est $4,500,000.00; FY 24 - For FY 2023, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Equipment Assistance Grants ranged from $45,739 to $3,745,223; the grant average was $555,556. For FY 2019, the Administrative Review and Training Grants awarded $8.5 million for oversight and training. There are two types of awards: ART Planning Grants for awards up to $150,000 with grant periods of up to one year; and ART Implementation Grants for awards up to $3,000,000 with grant periods of one to three years. For FY 2022 (Most recent award) FNS awarded one School Breakfast Expansion Grant for a total of $2M to Puerto Rico For FY 2018, there were three Direct Certification Grants awarded ranging from $86,160 to $970,580. Grant average was $670,475. For Summer EBT in FY19, $31 million was awarded to four grantees for three summers of project implementation. Grants ranged from $3 million to $15 million. 7 CFR, as applicable. Also, determined by the legislation authorizing the grants. Fiscal Year 2017 Administrative Review and Training (ART) Grants: https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/fy2016-method-ii-art-grant-summaries NSLP Equipment Grants: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2016/003416 Summer EBT: https://www.fns.usda.gov/ops/summer-food-children-demonstrations and https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/sebtcfinalreport.pdf
Fiscal Year 2018 Direct Certification Grants - https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/2018-direct-certification-improvement-grant-summaries
Fiscal Year 2019 Administrative Review and Training Grants - https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/fy%202019-art-grant-summaries