Fourth-grader Aliza Stapleton takes her lunch tray on May 20, 2019 at Englewood Elementary (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)
Nearly all children enrolled in Salem’s public schools will get a $389 food payment from the State of Oregon, the Department of Human Services announced Wednesday.
The payment is an extension of Oregon’s pandemic EBT benefits, often called food stamps. Any child who receives free or reduced price lunch at school will automatically receive a $129 payment in September and a $260 payment in October, said Vanessa Vanderzee, a spokesperson for the department.
The money is intended to cover school meals students didn’t receive when schools were closed during the Covid pandemic.
Oregon previously mailed benefit cards to families of eligible students earlier in the summer and issued payments of up to $1,100 per child between July and September. Families don’t need to do anything to receive the latest round of payments, which will be added to that card automatically.
Free school meals, largely funded by the federal government, are intended to ensure children from low-income families don’t go hungry and can focus on schoolwork. Children normally qualify to receive those meals based on their household income. But schools where at least 40% of students qualify based on income can choose to offer free meals to all.
The Salem-Keizer School District has done that at 63 of its 65 schools, meaning nearly every child in Salem will receive the extra money. Only Candalaria Elementary School and Straub Middle School don’t qualify.
The latest round of payments will go to about 430,000 children statewide, for a total of $167 million.
Families who no longer have the pandemic EBT card issued to them earlier in the summer can get a replacement by calling the EBT Card Replacement Hotline at 1-855-328-6715 or emailing [email protected]
-Rachel Alexander
