Child Nutrition Program Waiver for Meal Delivery
Begin here.
Click on the link included in this letter, which will take you to an application, be sure to check the boxes re: Meal Service Time Requirements and Congregate feeding requirements if you are going to be delivering meals. If you have any questions or need clarification, you can also contact your Meal Program Analyst.
This is the process in California, it may be different in different states.
Dear Program Operator,
The California Department of Education (CDE) Nutrition Services Division (NSD) is extremely grateful for your concern about your Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) participants, and for your efforts to meet their nutritional needs during this difficult time.
On March 20, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued three meal service waivers as part of the COVID-19 Child Nutrition Response Act:
- Meal service time requirements applicable to all Child Nutrition Programs (CNP)
2. Congregate feeding requirements applicable to all CNPs
- Educational or enrichment activity requirements applicable to National School Lunch Program Afterschool Snacks and CACFP At-risk Afterschool Meals and Snacks
The USDA requires Program Operators to provide notification to the CDE on the intent to utilize the waivers. In order to streamline the process, Program Operators are to complete an application as the means to provide this notification. Please note, the application is the notification to the CDE of your intent to use the waivers.
The application is located at https://surveys2.cde.ca.gov/go/cacfpcovidwaivers.asp.
Once you submit the application, it will inform you that CDE has approved your waiver(s).
Updates regarding the USDA waivers and any additional information agencies need to implement them will be posted to the CDE COVID-19 Guidance for K-12 Schools web page at www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/schoolmeals.asp.
We appreciate your patience as we process waiver requests and answer your questions. Thank you again for your efforts to provide meals to our most vulnerable CACFP participants.
After completing the application, which took about 30 seconds, within 5 minutes I received the following approval.
Thank you for your request. You are approved temporarily to waive educational or enrichment activity requirements applicable to the National School Lunch Program Afterschool Snacks and the CACFP At-Risk Afterschool Meals and Snacks programs or to serve meals in a noncongregate (i.e., non-group) setting for your affected sites (i.e., centers if you are an independent center or sponsor two or more centers; or providers if you sponsor providers).
Since there is no foreseeable solution to COVID-19 at this time: You may temporarily serve noncongregate CACFP meals and snacks for your affected sites until June 30, 2020, or upon expiration of the federally declared public health emergency, whichever is earlier.
For more information or technical assistance, please contact your agency’s assigned CACFP Specialist by email at CACFPWAIVER@cde.ca.gov.
Within 24 hours I received the following: For this I will log into my account and update the time(s) you will be delivering the meals. Which should coincide generally with the time that they were delivered.
Thank you for your request. You are approved temporarily to serve meals at your proposed meal service times.
To finalize this waiver to serve meals at new or extended service times, you must update meal service times for each site in your CACFP Application Packet in the Child Nutrition Information and Payment System (CNIPS) within 30 days of submitting this waiver request.
For more information or technical assistance, please contact your agency’s assigned CACFP Specialist by email at CACFPWAIVER@cde.ca.gov.