Child And Adult Care Food Program

What is CACFP?

CACFP is the Child and Adult Care Food Program, a federal program that provides healthy meals and snacks to children and adults receiving day care. It plays a vital role in improving the quality of day care and making it more affordable for many low-income families.
CACFP reimburses participating centers and day care homes for their meal costs. It is administered at the federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state education or health department administers CACFP in most states. Independent centers and sponsoring organizations enter into agreements with their State agencies to operate the program

What types of facilities provide CACFP meals?

  • Child Care Centers.

    Public or private nonprofit child care centers, Head Start programs, and some for-profit centers which are licensed or approved to provide day care may serve meals and snacks to infants and children through

  • Family Day Care Homes.

    CACFP provides reimbursement for meals and snacks served to small groups of children receiving nonresidential day care in licensed or approved private homes. A family or group day care home must sign an agreement with a sponsoring organization to participate in CACFP. The sponsoring organization organizes training, conducts monitoring, and helps with planning menus and filling out reimbursement forms.

  • After School Care Programs.

    Community-based programs that offer enrichment activities for at-risk children and teenagers, after the regular school day ends, can provide free snacks through CACFP. Reimbursable suppers are also available to children in eligible afterschool care programs in seven States-- Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

  • Homeless Shelters.

    Emergency shelters which provide residential and food services to homeless families may participate in CACFP. Unlike most other CACFP facilities, a shelter does not have to be licensed to provide day care.

  • Adult Day Care Centers.

    Public, private nonprofit, and some for-profit adult day care facilities which provide structured, comprehensive services to functionally impaired, nonresident adults may participate in CACFP.

Who gets CACFP meals and snacks?

Children age 12 and younger are eligible to receive up to two meals and one snack, each day, at a day care home or center, through CACFP. Children who reside in homeless shelters may receive up to three reimbursable meals each day until they reach age 18. Migrant children age 15 and younger, and persons with disabilities, regardless of their age, are also eligible for CACFP. Afterschool care snacks are available to children through age 18. Adult participants must be functionally impaired or age 60 or older, and enrolled in an adult care center where they may receive up to two meals and one snack, each day, through CACFP.

We are a child care center participating in the CACFP program. When will we receive our check for reimbursement?

Reimbursement checks are issued at the beginning of the month following the month claimed. If you have not received your reimbursement check by the end of the month, call us to check on it.

I provide home daycare. How can I find out how to get on the food program?

The sponsors in Utah are listed on the agency web site here. You can contact any of the sponsors to find out more about program requirements and find out how to sign up for the program.

I have a day care center. How can I find out how to get on the food program?

Once each month, our office provides training for new child care centers. At the training, you will receive an application and information about the program requirements. Call our office at 538-7680 to sign up for the training.

How can I become a sponsor of day care homes?

All Family Day Care Home sponsoring organizations must be either government or private nonprofit institutions. Private individuals and for-profit organizations are not eligible to function as sponsors. In order to apply for participation in the program, your institution must first submit the documentation requested in the first eight items below. Once the institution demonstrates it has these basic qualifications, Management Plan and Budget forms will be provided together with technical assistance on how to complete them.

  • Incorporation and certification, according to state law, as tax exempt organization (Utah Department of Commerce).
  • Recognition by Internal Revenue Service as private nonprofit corporation under Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (usually based on 501(c) (3) status).
  • Governing board composition satisfactory to CACFP (Documentation showing the majority of the governing board is made up of individuals who are members of the community and who are not financially interested in the organizations activities and are not related to organization personnel or to each other).
  • Document unserved facilities or participants according to the following criteria:
    1. Recruited facilities are not currently participating or were recently terminated for convenience by another Sponsoring Organization (SO) due to being outside the SO's service area and
    2. Recruited facilities have not been terminated for cause, have no unresolved serious deficiency pending with another SO and do not owe a refund to another SO and
    3. The State Agency certifies other SOs are unable to accommodate the targeted facilities or the area(s) where it/they are located because:
    4. The other SOs generate insufficient resources to properly train and monitor facilities, and/or
    5. Supervising additional facilities would threaten other SO's viability, capability or accountability.
  • Certification that neither the organization nor any of its principals has ever been disqualified from participation in any other publicly funded program and that neither the organization nor any of its principals has been convicted in the last seven years of any activity that indicated a lack of business integrity (e.g., fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, etc.).
  • Documentation of financial viability (resources to withstand temporary interruptions in program payments or demand for repayment of funds as shown in audits, financial statements, bank statements, etc.).
  • Documentation of administrative capability (adequate staff to operate the program and provide supervision and monitoring of participating facilities).
  • Documentation of program accountability (financial management system, record keeping system, training capability, etc.).

    The prospective sponsoring organization must refrain from actively recruiting currently affiliated family day care providers.

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