Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins writes to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any USDA Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option, of the many ways they can purchase local foods to serve in program meals.
The purpose of this memorandum is to remind schools, sponsors, and institutions participating in any U.S. Department of Agriculture Child Nutrition Program, including the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program, Special Milk Program for Children, Child and Adult Care Food Program, Summer Food Service Program, and the Seamless Summer Option, of the various resources available to help child nutrition program operators procure local foods.
This memorandum seeks to ensure that current Food and Nutrition Service guidance pertaining to federal civil rights and nondiscrimination obligations remains aligned with applicable laws, regulations, executive orders and directives relevant to the agency’s 16 nutrition assistance programs.
The attached memorandum is intended for immediate distribution to state agencies in your region. Dissemination of this memorandum without changes will ensure uniform implementation of these legislative provisions.
This notice sets forth the interpretation that the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses for the term “Federal public benefit” as used in Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. In doing so, this notice supersedes any prior interpretation in any notice or other document issued by any USDA agency. This notice also describes and preliminarily identifies the USDA programs that provide “Federal public benefits” within the scope of PRWORA.
This rule removes the Coordinated Services Plan (CSP) requirement for the Summer Food Service Program and Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children Program under the “Implementing Provisions from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023: Establishing the Summer EBT Program and Rural Non-Congregate Option in the Summer Meal Programs” interim final rule published Dec. 29, 2023.
In the Summer Food Service Program, parent or guardian pick-up is a meal service option for which approved sponsors may distribute meals to parents or guardians to take home to their children.
In the Summer Food Service Program, site proximity refers to the minimum distance between approved sites, based on population density and accessibility to participants.
To maintain program integrity and ensure the site is meeting the intended purpose, site caps for rural non-congregate meal sites must accurately reflect the needs of the targeted rural communities being served.
This memorandum provides additional clarification on questions received from state agencies and program stakeholders. It also includes guidance on integrity measures for non-congregate meal service operations.