No Kid Hungry Virginia is excited to announce the launch of its Summer Grant Opportunity, designed to provide essential funding to support school districts and community organizations operating the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) or Seamless Summer Option (SSO) in rural communities. Funds are intended to support school districts and community organizations in implementing non-congregate meal programs this summer.
Strategies may include:
- Ensuring maximum student participation and improving meal quality in the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and Seamless Summer Option (SSO).
- Promoting awareness of non-congregate meal availability to students and families.
- Supporting partnerships with school districts and/or other local community-based organizations (nonprofit organizations, farmers/food producers, local governments, etc.) to implement and increase access to non-congregate meal programs.
Budget requests may include:
- Meal service supplies and equipment.
- Costs of hiring additional staff positions, increasing hours for existing staff, and providing incentives for staff retention, recruitment, and training.
- Technology requests, including point-of-service machines.
- Cleaning supplies/equipment.
- Program outreach, benefit enrollment assistance (SNAP, WIC, etc.) and marketing costs.
- Transportation costs associated with meal delivery such as refrigerated trucks or fuel.
- Additional expenses as needed.
Budget requests may NOT include:
- Funding to support congregate summer meal programs.
- Funding to cover existing and ongoing food costs.
- Funding to eliminate or reduce student meal debt.
- Supplies and equipment needed to support food access programs not associated with the federal child nutrition programs, including school gardens or farms, school pantries, backpack programs, etc.
- Existing and ongoing staffing costs, including hiring chefs.
- Supplies, equipment, and/or funding to support school building or capital investments (e.g. cafeteria redesign).
Applications are due March 22, 2024. If you are interested in applying or want to learn more about this opportunity, please contact Amy Biestek abiestek@strength.org.
