23/24 Planning: Equipment Grant Could Fill Needs Driven by Free School Meals

Now is a great time to plan for the 2023-24 school year and the equipment your program may need to make to accommodate Free School Meals, which will likely increase your daily meal counts for breakfast and lunch. The Minnesota Department of Education is now accepting applications for its National School Lunch Program Equipment Grant FY22.

Consider:

• If you don't currently offer breakfast, you may need new merchandising racks, breakfast carts or milk coolers to implement grab-and-go breakfast in the hallways or near entrances. If you plan to do serve breakfast in the classroom, you may want new bus tubs and stainless steel carts for delivering breakfasts to each classroom. Equipment such as stainless-steel pushcarts or racks that will hold meal trays or breakfast containers are ideal for this purpose. 
• You may want to purchase racks that hold meal trays or breakfast containers in preparation for service.
• An electric food warmer, which holds up to 10 pans of food, or a cook-n-hold oven, which will allow you to heat your own food (if your kitchen meets requirements for having one), might be helpful additions to ensure high quality food across all lunch periods.

Your Client Services Manager at CKC Good Food can help you determine how the increased breakfast and lunch participation will affect your operations and service flow and make recommendations for equipment you may want to add. With those recommendations in hand, you can apply for MDE's equipment grant.

Grant Details

Due Date: June 2, 2023, 11:59 p.m., Central Standard Time.

From MDE's website, "The purpose of this competitive grant opportunity is for SFAs in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in Minnesota to purchase new equipment that is needed to serve healthier meals, improve food safety, and expand access to school meals.

"The total amount available is $830,302. The maximum grant amount is $25,000. All costs must be incurred first by the awardee and then reimbursed with grant funds."

Timeline

• Question and Answer period closes: May 15, 2023, 4 p.m., Central Standard Time
• Posting of the question and answer document: May 22, 2023
• Applications due date: June 2, 2023, 11:59 p.m., Central Standard Time
• Approximate date of grant award announcement for applicants: early August 2023

For full grant details, visit the grant opportunity page on MDE's website.