Assistance program
Summer Food Service Program for Children
$130.5 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Food and Nutrition Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 10.559
- What it does
- The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) operates SFSP in partnership with State agencies and local organizations to provide free meals to eligible children during the summer months and at other approved times when school is not in session. USDA assists States through grants-in-aid and other means to conduct nonprofit food service programs for children through the SFSP.
- Who benefits
- A service institution that conducts a regularly scheduled program for children from areas in which poor economic conditions exist is eligible to participate as a sponsor in this program. Sponsors include public or private nonprofit school food authorities; public or private nonprofit colleges or universities operating the National Youth Sports Program during the months of May to September; units of local, municipal, county, or State governments; and other faith or community-based private nonprofit organizations. Public or private nonprofit residential or nonresidential summer camps may also participate. However, at camps, reimbursement will only be paid for meals served to enrolled children who are individually determined to be eligible for free and reduced price school meals under USDA Income Eligibility Guidelines.
- Who applies
- The State (includes District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) agency applies for and signs an agreement to receive Federal funds for disbursement. The State agency enters into an agreement with each sponsor that has been approved for participation. The agreement is permanent and may be amended as necessary to ensure compliance with all Federal requirements. Sponsors must agree to operate a nonprofit food service that is available to all eligible children regardless of race, sex, color, national origin, age, or disability.
- Authorized by
- Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act, Sections 9, 13, 14, and 26, as amended
- 42 U.S.C. U.S.C. § 1758, 1761, 1762a, and 1769g
- Program site
- http://fns.usda.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments