After School Nutrition Funding Survey

Please read the following brief description of the Afterschool Supper Program and indicate whether or not you would participate in this program:

The Afterschool Supper Program allows after school programs to receive federal dollars to provide supper to children age 18 and under with vastly reduced paperwork. In participating states, the after school program qualifies simply by operating in a low-income area where 50 percent or more of the children qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The program then receives the maximum federal reimbursement rate for all of the suppers. The after school program can participate itself, or another entity, like a school, a parks and recreation agency, or a food bank, can provide the suppers to the after school program. The supper program currently is available in seven states, but not California.

To count as a supper, the meal served must have the required components:

• 1 serving of milk
• 2 servings of fruits and/or vegetables
• 1 serving of grains
• 1 serving of protein

What Would This Mean?

• The main point is that with this program after school programs could serve a more substantial “snack” . This does not have to entail cooking or staying open late to serve “supper” as one may traditionally think of it. For example, to meet the supper component requirements (listed above) you could serve a turkey sandwich, an apple, some carrot sticks and a milk.
• There would not be limited timeframe in which to serve your “supper” . . . that is, it is up to the state adopting the program to establish a time frame limiting or not limiting when you could serve the “supper” meal.
• This would mean more substantial funding to meet the needs of feeding your after school participants For example, as of this survey date the federal reimbursement rate for each supper served is $2.47 per student per meal (free meal) and $2.07 per student per meal (reduced-price meal).