WSDA Farm to School Purchasing Grants are reimbursement grants to support child nutrition programs with funds to purchase foods grown, raised, caught, or foraged in Washington State with an emphasis on procurement from small and direct marketing farms and food businesses, including socially disadvantaged, beginning, limited resource, women and veteran farmers and ranchers.
Donor Name: Washington State Department of Agriculture
State: Washington
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant | Reimbursement
Deadline: 04/15/2024
Size of the Grant: Not Available
Grant Duration: 1 Year
Details:
The grant funds are intended to support schools and early learning services in procuring high quality, nutritious, culturally relevant foods for their meal programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted food supply chains making it difficult for child nutrition programs to procure food. To recover from these negative impacts on the Washington state local food economy and communities, Washington State needs strong farm to school programs. Support to child nutrition program operators is essential to this recovery and to assure future resiliency in the local food supply chain and access to local foods in child nutrition programs.
There are three program types:
- School Meals
- Childcare Meals
- Summer Meals.
Grant Period
The grant funding period is July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025.
Eligible Expenses
Farm to School Purchasing Grant funds must be used to support the grant purpose of increasing use of Washington grown, raised, caught, or foraged foods.
Farm to school purchasing may:
- Increase scratch cooking practices with the use of more ingredients in fresh and raw forms.
- Create opportunities for meal programs to develop culturally relevant meals for students.
- Introduce students and staff to new and unfamiliar foods with supportive training, education, and taste-testing.
- Expand opportunities for Washington’s small farm and food producers to access new markets.
The Farm to School Purchasing Grant may be used to cover non-food costs in addition to direct food purchases. Non-food costs must directly support the development and sustainability of farm to school efforts to purchase and promote foods grown and raised in Washington State.
Awardees may use up to 25% of their total awarded grant funds on eligible non-food costs. Awardees must spend at least 75% of the awarded grant funds on food purchases.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants awarded a grant in Round 1 are not eligible to apply for the same program type in Round 2.
Entities eligible to apply for a WSDA Farm to School Purchasing Grant include:
- Tribal Schools and Tribal Early Learning Programs.
- Organizations that operate one of the following USDA Child Nutrition Programs:
-
- National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
- Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) – Childcare
- For schools and early learning only.
- Program operators of adult care food programs and At-Risk After School Meal programs are not eligible.
- Organizations that oversee multiple Family Day Care Home (FDCH) providers are eligible to apply.
- FDCH providers may not apply individually but they may participate through the organization that oversees them.
- For schools and early learning only.
- Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and Seamless Summer Option (SSO)
- including community SFSP providers- NEW IN ROUND 2.
For more information, visit WSDA.
