Rose Chamberlain, division director at the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, recently sent a letter to stakeholders informing them that the summer electronic transfer benefit program will continue to provide New Jersey families with children who are eligible for federal free or federal reduced price school meals with $40 per child per month to cover the three summer months of June, July and August when school is not in session.
According to the letter, New Jersey will again be issuing the one-time summer EBT benefit as a single $120 allotment per eligible child. Families will receive physical EBT cards, like those used for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which they can then use to purchase nutritious food anywhere that SNAP-EBT is accepted.
Her letter notes, “It is imperative that SFAs appoint a designated individual for the administration of the summer EBT program at the local level. Start preparing for Summer 2025 now by encouraging all families to update their address to ensure timely benefit distribution. Please also work with your data processing and IT departments to ensure that precise student demographic, enrollment, and meal eligibility information for every student on file with access to meals, is accurately uploaded into the SNEARS Summer EBT System. For Summer 2025, significant improvements are being made to the School Food Authority (SFA) File Upload Process, including technology enhancements specifically targeting duplicate SFA student data.”
The full letter provides a variety of additional information about the program and the requirements schools must fulfill to ensure students are enrolled into the summer EBT program.
