Tampa, FL – A new federal grant program will provide millions of dollars to help schools serve healthier meals while updating kitchens, staffing and food purchasing systems.<\/p>\n
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the $32.5 million Dietary Excellence for Promoting Education and Nutrition program Wednesday at Tampa Bay Boulevard Elementary School. U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody joined Kennedy for the announcement in Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n
Known as DEPEND, the initiative will distribute one-time competitive grants to eligible schools and organizations. <\/p>\n
Awards are expected to range from about $75,000 to $2.5 million, depending on each proposal and the scope of planned improvements.<\/p>\n
Federal officials said the funding will support four areas: food purchasing and supply, workforce development and food production, student demand and meal economics, and upgrades to operations and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Kennedy said some schools lack functioning kitchens or the equipment needed to prepare fresh meals. <\/p>\n
The program is intended to help those campuses expand access to nutrient-dense food while working within existing meal budgets.<\/p>\n
Hillsborough County Public Schools, identified during the announcement as the nation\u2019s seventh-largest school district, hosted the event.<\/p>\n
Moody noted that she grew up in the county and attended local schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.<\/p>\n
The grants are part of a broader federal effort to improve the nutritional quality of school meals and strengthen local food preparation capacity.<\/p>\n
Detailed application guidance is expected to become available in mid-September.<\/p>\n
Interested schools and eligible organizations will be able to register for program information and submit proposals after the application period opens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tampa, FL – A new federal grant program will provide millions of dollars to help schools serve healthier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3853,47,153665,1722,153662,153666,153664,30057,12841,121018,153663,4348,33674,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-383225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-ashley-moody","tag-fl","tag-food-purchasing","tag-grant","tag-grant-initiative","tag-kitchen-infrastructure","tag-meal-nutrition","tag-meals","tag-program","tag-rfk-jr","tag-school-lunch-grant-program","tag-schools","tag-staffing","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}