Ben Hill County School System was eligible and re-certified under Community Eligibility Provision in July 2019.

This re-certification will begin July 2019 and will last for 4 school years. This means ALL Students are able to eat Breakfast & Lunch for FREE. Moving forward the School Nutrition Department needs your help to maintain this certification.

First, please support your schools cafeteria by eating with us for breakfast and lunch for FREE. Our funding is based on participation percentages.

Second, to qualify for this provision and to get a higher rate of funding all households receiving SNAP, TAND, FDPIR benefits must be identified in our system. Also any students in your household who are classified as Homeless, Migrant, Runaway, or Foster needs to be identified in our system. When you updated your household and student information each year at the school level please give them this information. We promise this information is considered confidential and will not leave our offices.

Thank you so much for your help maintaining our CEP certification! 

The Community Eligibility Provision is a four-year reimbursement option for eligible, high poverty, local education agencies and schools. Under this provision, a local educational agency may participate for all schools in the local educational agency or only for some schools. Participating local educational agencies must offer free breakfast and lunches for four successive years to all children attending participating schools and receive meal reimbursement based on claiming percentages. 

Section 104(a) of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (Act) amended section 11(a)(1) of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to provide an alternative that eliminates the need for household applications for free and reduced-price meals in high-poverty LEAs and schools. This alternative, which is now part of the NSLP, is referred to as the Community Eligibility Provision (Community Eligibility).

To be eligible, LEAs and/or schools must meet a minimum level of “identified students” for free meals in the year prior to implementing Community Eligibility; agree to serve free breakfasts and lunches to all students; and agree to cover with non-Federal funds any costs of providing free meals to students above the amounts provided by Federal assistance. Reimbursement for each LEA or school is based on claiming percentages derived from the percentage of identified students, i.e., students certified for free meals through means other than individual household applications. The claiming percentages established in the first year for an LEA or school may be used for four school years and may be increased if the percentage of identified students rises for the LEA or school.

• Eligibility is based on the percentage of identified students enrolled
  • Identified students are those who participate in SNAP,TANF, OR FDPIR.
  • Homeless, runaway, migrant, or foster children.
• The identified student percentage must be 40% for the entity to participate.