Federal grant programs / Department of Agriculture

Child Nutrition Discretionary Grants Limited Availability (10.579)

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$296 million
• Grant awards310
• Typical award$350,938
• Awarded in FY 2025-$969,373
• Size rank510 of 1824
• Type of assistanceProject grants

Key findings

• It is the 510th largest of 1,824 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 78% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 55 states and territories.

What the program funds

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 Rule titled, “Child Nutrition Programs: Meal Patterns Consistent With the 202-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative Spring 2024 Healthy Meals Summit was a cooperative agreement between USDA and Action for Healthy Kids to convene Healthy Meals Incentives small and rural grantees to discuss grant projects and share innovative ideas for improving the nutritional quality of school meals.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

• Harvest to Hallways: National School Lunch Program, Equipment Assistance Grants
  Open · Closes January 11, 2027 (72 days left) · up to $6.2 million

Rules from the program listing

Who can apply

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

What the money can and cannot pay for

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. There may be restrictions, as required by legislation or regulation.;

Matching requirements

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

Deadlines

Deadlines vary by grant opportunity as specified in the NOFO.

Award range and average, in the agency's words

For FY 2023, the Healthy Meals Incentives (HMI) Recognition Awards and Sub-Grants for School Food Authorities Cooperative Agreement awarded $46,881,200. The HMI School Food System Transformation Cooperative Agreement awarded $50,000,000. $1,100,195 was awarded for the Spring 2024 Healthy Meals Summit. For FY 2024, $1,742,478 was awarded for the Supplemental Marketing and Communications for HMI. For FY 2024, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Equipment Assistance Grants ranged from $10,511 to $1,146,825; the grant average was $185,185. 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, FNS awarded one School Breakfast Expansion Grant for a total of $2M to Puerto Rico. For FY 2023, FNS awarded three School Breakfast Expansion Grants to Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 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.

Examples of funded projects

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

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

State and local governments received 55% of the money, nonprofits 34% and tribes 7.4%.

By state

38 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.