Reduced price school lunch program

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Set your location: Set Cancel. My Location: Loading Font Size:. By Topic. Schools, childcare centers, adult day care centers, and family day care home sponsors will provide a form to apply for free or reduced-price meals. Only one application is required per household. Most participating centers and all participating family childcare homes provide meals to all enrolled participants without any separate charge. Households with incomes less than or equal to the following guidelines qualify for free or reduced-price meals or free milk.

Information supplied on an application for free or reduced-price meals may be verified at any time. To learn more about the new standards and how schools strive to provide healthy and appealing meals that encourage student participation, please see:.

In response to concerns about the role of the school meal environment in children's diets and other issues, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of also established updated nutrition standards for non-USDA foods sold in schools often called "competitive foods" participating in USDA's school meal programs.

The Act also created the Community Eligibility Provision CEP , an option that allows high-poverty schools to offer free meals to all students. To learn more about CEP, please see:. USDA also encourages school districts to use locally-produced foods in school meals and to use "farm-to-school" activities to spark students' interest in trying new foods. More than 4 in 10 U. S school districts reported participating in farm-to-school activities, which includes serving local foods, in the or school years.

To learn more about the characteristics of school districts likely to serve local foods, please see:.