2009 American Renewal & Recovery Act (ARRA)

Food Service Equipment Assistance Grantees

The 2009 ARRA provided a one-time opportunity for National School Lunch Program sponsors to obtain new food service equipment or to renovate or replace existing equipment. USDA allocated $849,759 in grant funds to KSDE.

The application process for the grant funds was announced on April 2, 2009. By the May 8 deadline, KSDE received applications from 138 program sponsors requesting 562 pieces of equipment to be used in 268 schools. The total amount of funds requested was $5,555,707 which is more than 6.5 times the funds available. Because of the extremely large volume of applications, KSDE was able to consider only applications for schools with 50% or more of students eligible for free or reduced price school meals.

The application for each equipment item requested was scored by two independent evaluators using the criteria provided with the grant application materials. The evaluators' scores were averaged to determine the final score for each item. Funds were awarded for the items with the highest scores.

Preliminary grant awards of $847,939 have been made to the following 33 districts to purchase 84 pieces of equipment for use in 70 schools. Grantees will be reimbursed for actual costs up to the approved amounts.