All NYC Public School Families Will Receive $420 Per Child For Food Benefits Through Federal Coronavirus Relief Effort
Every public school student in New York City will soon receive more than $400 to help pay for food while school buildings are shut down, regardless of family income.
Through a federal relief effort, the state was recently approved to disperse the Coronavirus Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer or P-EBT. The sweeping program will automatically send families the equivalent of about $5.70 per day to make up for meals that each student would have been eligible for while in school.
Because New York City is a universal free lunch district, providing no-cost meals to all 1 million students regardless of need, every child in a city-run public school qualifies. It adds up to about $420 per child — retroactive from the time buildings were shuttered in mid-March, through the end of the academic year in June. Across the state, the program will bring in more than $880 million in federal funds.
Charter and parochial students should also benefit, so long as their school participates in the federal school lunch program.
Anti-hunger activists who fought for universal free lunch in the city say the coming relief is unprecedented in scale and serves dual purposes: keeping children fed, and helping local businesses stay afloat.
Families, some of whom may be receiving public assistance for the first time, should not hesitate to use the money, said Joshua Goodman, a city spokesperson.
“This is an important program that is going to benefit a lot of people,” he wrote in an email. “This crisis is exactly what public benefits like P-EBT were made for, and there is no reason to feel reluctant to use it to take care of your family.
This was originally posted in Chalkbeat
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