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The Child and Adult Care Food Program
A Resource For School Food Service
Serving Children in Afterschool Programs

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a key source of support for providing nutritious meals and snacks to afterschool programs during the school year, holidays and the summer. The program provides reimbursement for meal preparation, food and paperwork costs. Since CACFP is an federal entitlement program, the funding for the program is not capped: all eligible children can participate.

Supplying meals and snacks using CACFP funding can provide considerable support to afterschool program budgets. This will allow them to start programs, expand them, improve the quality of food served, and to free up other funds to enrich services.

A number of schools across the country have been using the Child and Adult Care Food Program to provide dinners to afterschool programs in high poverty schools. For example, the School Food Service in Chicago has been very successful using the Child and Adult Care Food Program to serve dinners and snacks to children in the school district's afterschool McPrep program. The McPrep afterschool program receives $7 million a year through CACFP to serve meals and snacks to over 112,000 students in 250 schools. The McPrep program anticipates that CACFP will make up approximately a fifth of the total budget this year.

The average size afterschool program, 35 children, can receive a substantial reimbursement. An afterschool program in a low-income areas using CACFP to serve snacks can receive reimbursements of approximately $460 each month for 35 children, adding up to over $3,700 for each school year. The amount received for afterschool programs serving suppers is related to the income of the children in the program and it can be up to $1,600 each month, equaling up to $13,700 each school year. The reimbursement rates are adjusted annually every July 1st. Click here for current rates.

The program can serve meals and snacks to children in any area up to age 13. The CACFP reimbursement level is based on family income. The new area eligibility reimbursement option will allow a program in a low-income area to claim snacks for children up to 19 and to receive the highest level of reimbursement for each snack for all children in the program without collecting income applications.

For more information contact Crystal FitzSimons at cfitzsimons@frac.org.