The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) recently announced the availability of $600,000 in mini-grants for schools to implement or expand alternative breakfast programs and to make breakfast available to all students.

“Students who eat a healthy, nutritious breakfast are in a better position to learn and succeed when they enter the classroom,” said Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera, who made the announcement as part of National School Breakfast Week. “These grants will help more students by enabling schools to initiate a new breakfast program or to bolster an existing one.”

Under the School Breakfast Initiative, first introduced as part of the 2017-18 state budget, grants of up to $5,000 are available for schools to implement a breakfast program using an “alternative serving method,” like grab-and-go, or Breakfast in the Classroom. Schools can also expand an existing program to include an alternative serving method. Breakfast must be made available to all students in a school.

Grant applications and additional details may be found on the PDE’s website. Grant applications will be available beginning March 12. The deadline for schools to apply for a mini-grant is April 15. Each awarded school will increase and sustain breakfast participation by 20% over breakfast participation from October 2018.

Last year, 200 schools were awarded $900,000 from the inaugural round of grants
.