Program Benefits Families of Children Who Normally Receive Free or Reduced-Price Meals at School

Applications for the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) Program have been submitted on behalf of 403,731 children, or about 66 percent of all eligible children in Louisiana. The application portal opened May 18, and the deadline to apply is June 8.

Eligible families who have not yet submitted an application are urged to do so by the deadline. The short, electronic application is available on the Louisiana Department of Education's website, and the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has extended the hours of its LAHelpU Customer Service Center to include Saturday to assist additional families.

All Louisiana public schools and many non-public school facilities have been closed since March 16 as a result of the ongoing public health crisis. Under the federal P-EBT program, families of children in prekindergarten through 12th grade who normally receive free or reduced-price meals at school may get financial assistance to replace those meals. This includes children who attend a Community Eligibility Provision school, at which all children receive free and reduced-price meals regardless of income. These benefits, which total $285 per child, intend to cover 50 school days, from the onset of statewide school facility closures through the end of the 2019-2020 academic year.

P-EBT is separate from the more familiar Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit, which is issued on a Louisiana Purchase EBT card to approved low-income households. The P-EBT card can be used to purchase the same eligible food for the household as can be purchased with a SNAP card. All SNAP families with qualifying students are also eligible to receive P-EBT benefits if they apply, and P-EBT also is available to non-SNAP families if they meet the P-EBT guidelines.

The P-EBT benefits do not compete with other school meals programs. Many public school systems, for example, continue to offer emergency school meals to children regardless of the child's enrollment or income. Children can continue to access these meals, in addition to the P-EBT benefits.

The online application is simple, requiring only a name, address, school district and school. Social security numbers, while helpful, are not required. The information submitted by the family, however, must exactly match the information on file with the school system in order for the application to successfully submit.

Once families complete an application in the portal, the computer system will notify them of their successful submission. Upon verification, DCFS will then mail the household a P-EBT debit card loaded with $285 per child.