Delaware’s Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program will provide one-time benefits for eligible families for food assistance this summer.
The one-time benefits are through the federal American Rescue Plan Act, and they cover the summer when children on break don’t receive meals at school.
Funds go to children who received P-EBT benefits during the last month of the school year, along with children eligible for free or reduced-price school meals during the last school year, but didn’t receive P-EBT benefits during the last month.
Benefits also go to those newly eligible for free or reduced-price meals during the summer, and children under 6 receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits during the summer.
Eligible families will receive $375 for each eligible child in the household on their EBT card.
Marcella Spady is the acting deputy director of the state’s Division of Social Services. She says it will help families not able to get to their school for summer meal programs.
"There are some areas where it's easier to access than others, and it's to ensure that all children are being covered from every angle," said Spady. "This allows us to be able to provide, and as you know a lot of costs have gone up for groceries and those types of things and this offers additional money to get families through this time."
Spady says this isn’t the first time the state has received summer help feeding children.
"Before the pandemic we actually for a couple of years had a grant that we called a Summer feeding grant that actually did something similar to this, but it was a grant you had to apply for, and at one point we did not get the grant," said Spady. "So this is the first time since we stopped getting the grant that this has been available."
The Division of Social Services collaborating with the state Department of Education will issue the benefit between now and July 29th.
