These funds allow school food authorities (SFA) to purchase food service equipment to serve healthier meals that meet the updated meal pattern requirements, replace outdated and worn equipment, improve food safety, and to help support the establishment, maintenance, or expansion of the School Breakfast Program. It gives priority to those SFAs that have not received an equipment grant since 2018.

SFAs should keep the following criteria in mind when applying for the equipment grant:

• First time applicants—the Nutrition Services Division (NSD) will give priority to SFA sites that have not received an EAG during the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 EAG.
  
• Effectiveness of equipment purchased—the NSD will give priority to SFAs that explicitly document how the equipment they purchase will reflect the intent of the grant. SFAs must provide a narrative with specific emphasis on the focus areas detailed in the scoring criteria.
  
• Excess net cash resources (NCR)—the NSD may consider SFAs with excess NCR to be ineligible to receive an EAG. In accordance with Title 7, Code of Federal Regulations (7 CFR), Section 210.14(b), an SFA shall limit its NCR to an amount that does not exceed three month average expenditures of its food service account. SFAs with excess NCR must give a detailed explanation in their application for their excess NCR.
  
• SFAs must be in good standing in all Child Nutrition Programs in which they operate.
  

Definition of Equipment:

• Equipment requests may include new or renovated equipment. For purposes of this grant, the NSD may award equipment with a per unit cost of $1,000 or more.
• It is also permissible for SFAs to set their own lower capitalization threshold for equipment. In such cases, an SFA can purchase a piece of equipment at a lower cost that meets or exceeds that SFA’s capitalization threshold. SFAs with a lower capitalization threshold must include in their application an official board or district policy granting the lower threshold. The NSD will assign the federal threshold of $1,000 to SFAs that do not submit an official policy of a lower capitalization threshold at the time of application.
  

• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Eligibility Criteria" for clarification)

Estimated Total Program Funding: