FILE – In this Wednesday, July 10, 2019 file photo, 6-year-old elementary school students go through the lunch line in the school’s cafeteria in Paducah, Ky. Nearly a million students could lose their automatic eligibility for free school lunches under a Trump administration proposal that’s expected to reduce the number of people who get food stamps. In October 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has released an analysis finding as many as 982,000 children could be affected by the change. (Ellen O’Nan/The Paducah Sun via AP)

WASHINGTON (WLNS) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced Michigan has been approved to operate Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT), a new program authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Act (FFCRA), signed by President Trump.

The program provides assistance to families of children eligible for free or reduced-price meals dealing with school closures.

The State of Michigan will be the first state to operate Pandemic EBT, a supplemental food purchasing benefit to current SNAP participants and as a new EBT benefit to other eligible households to offset the cost of meals that would have otherwise been consumed at school.

In the 2019-2020 school year, nearly 750,000 Michigan children were eligible for free-and reduced-priced lunch.

“During these unprecedented times in the United States, President Trump has authorized a whole of America approach to tackling the coronavirus, and by authorizing pandemic EBT in the state of Michigan, we are able to ensure the Americans who need food the most are able to get it,” said Secretary Perdue.

Under FFCRA, states have the option to submit a plan to the Secretary of Agriculture for providing these benefits to SNAP and non-SNAP households with children who have temporarily lost access to free or reduced-price school meals due to pandemic-related school closures. State agencies may operate Pandemic EBT when a school is closed for at least five consecutive days during a public health emergency designation during which the school would otherwise be in session.

This latest action complements previously-announced flexibilities for the Child Nutrition programs that:

· Allow parents and guardians to pick up meals to bring home to their kids;

· Temporarily waive meal times requirements to make it easier to pick up multiple-days’ worth of meals at once;

· Allow meals be served in non-congregate settings to support social distancing;

· Waive the requirement that afterschool meals and snacks served through certain programs be accompanied by educational activities to minimize exposure to the novel coronavirus; and

· Allow states, on an individual state-by-state basis, to serve free meals to children in all areas, rather than only those in areas where at least half of students receive free or reduced-price meals.

Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of actions that USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service has taken to uphold the USDA’s commitment to “Do Right and Feed Everyone” during this national emergency. Other actions include:

· Launching a new coronavirus webpage to proactively inform the public about USDA’s efforts to keep children and families fed;

· Providing one million meals a week through public-private partnership Meals to You;

· Increasing access to online purchasing by expanding the online purchasing pilot;

· Debuting “Meals for Kids” interactive site finder – to help families find meals for children while schools are closed;

· Allowing states to issue emergency supplemental SNAP benefits to increase recipients’ purchasing power;

· Collecting solutions to feeding children impacted through feedingkids@usda.gov; and

· Providing administrative flexibilities in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to allow for social distancing.

These actions and more are part of USDA’s focus on service during the COVID-19 outbreak. To learn more about FNS’s response to COVID-19, visit www.fns.usda.gov/coronavirus.