Federal Grant Award Summary

The Department of Education Arkansas received a formula grant of $806,433 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service under the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) Administrative Costs program (CFDA 10.568), awarded October 1, 2025, with a completion date of September 30, 2026. This funding supports the administrative, storage, and distribution costs associated with operating TEFAP, which supplements the diets of low-income populations across Arkansas. The award allocation was determined using a congressionally mandated formula that weights each state's proportional share of persons living below the poverty level (60%) and unemployed individuals (40%).

As the designated state distributing agency, the Department of Education Arkansas must allocate a minimum of 40 percent of these administrative funds ($322,573) directly to emergency feeding organizations such as food banks, food pantries, and soup kitchens, either through direct grants or by expending funds on their behalf. The remaining funds support TEFAP operational infrastructure, including storage capacity and distribution network costs necessary to deliver USDA Foods to eligible low-income residents. Funds are provided electronically on an as-needed basis for actual expenditures, with any unused allocations returned to the federal government for reallocation to other states according to the established formula.