Arizona students eligible for meal assistance to get additional benefits
Apr 21, 2020, 4:30 PM
PHOENIX — The families of nearly 6,000 Arizona students who qualify for meal assistance will receive additional benefits from a nutrition program, Gov. Doug Ducey announced Tuesday.
Households will get the equivalent of one free breakfast and one free lunch per day for each eligible child, retroactive to March 16.
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service authorized the Arizona Department of Economic Security to provide the benefit, called the Arizona P-EBT Pandemic School Meal Replacement program.
Families already eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will see the benefit this week in their existing accounts.
DES will work with the Arizona Department of Education to determine the other eligible households and distribute debit cards to them with the benefits starting in early May.
Families will be credited with $69 for March, $126 in April and $120 in May for each eligible child.
DES will set up a website to take applications from families who may qualify but haven’t been notified.
“We are working to ensure no Arizona kid goes hungry during the COVID-19 health emergency,” Ducey said in a press release.
Public district and charter schools across Arizona in March were forced to close in-person instruction for the remainder of the scheduled year because of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected 5,251 people with 208 deaths in the state according to the report released by Arizona health officials on Tuesday.
During the time schools have been shuttered, many districts across the state are providing student meal programs for families to pick up.
“School meal programs have done an amazing job in ensuring students have access to nutritional meals while schools are closed due to the pandemic,” Tom Betlach of DES said in the release.
“These resources provide additional support for student nutrition and expand families’ options for healthy food for their children,” he added.
Parents can text “FOOD” — or “COMIDA” for Spanish — to 877-877 to get information about nearby locations where free meals are available for students through a service provided by the No Kid Hungry national nonprofit organization.
Families who have been receiving meals from schools are still eligible for the Pandemic School Meal Replacement benefits.