FOOD SERVICES

• School Meal Purchasing Info

• Food Service News

• Lunch Applications

  • Letter to Households

  • Online Application

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  • Paper Application - Spanish

• What Makes a Lunch?

• Account Balance Procedures for Negative, Withdrawn, or Graduating students

National School Lunch Program

Numerous scientific studies have suggested a strong link between child nutrition and learning in school. This supports the importance of the availability of school meals programs in improving the educational performance of our children.
Every school day the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves nutritious meals to more than 29.6 million children nationwide. Pennsylvania served more than 168 million school lunches during the 2018-19 school year. These healthy meals enhance our children's readiness to learn.

How does it work?
The NSLP is a federal and state reimbursement program for each meal served that meets federal requirements. All NSLP sponsors are required to offer free and reduced-price lunches to eligible children. Reimbursement rates are established annually by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Sponsors are entitled to receive USDA commodities for each lunch they serve. The variety of commodities sponsors may receive depends on product availability and market prices.

Who may participate?
Any public school, intermediate unit, charter school, area vocational technical or career technology school, public residential child care institution, and tax exempt non-public school or residential child care institution may apply to be an NSLP sponsor.

How do children qualify for free or reduced-price lunches ?
Children from families with incomes at or below 130% of the poverty level, and children in families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and children in families receiving food stamp benefits are eligible for free lunches. Children in families whose income is between 130% and 185% of the poverty level are eligible for reduced price lunches.

What are the meal requirements?
To qualify for reimbursement, all NSLP lunches must meet federal nutrition requirements. School lunches must offer foods from the five required components that include whole or enriched grain, fruit, vegetable, meat/meat alternate, and fluid milk. Serving sizes vary based on the grade level of the students. Decisions about the specific foods to serve and the methods of preparation are made by local school food authorities.
More information may be found on the USDA National School Lunch Fact Sheet
To complete the Application, please click on the links under Lunch Applications in the Yellow Box to the left.