Wait: Don’t toss that card!
P-EBT cards in the mail are cash for groceries
August 5, 2023 | By Lisa ScagliottiNew little plastic cards are landing in Vermonters’ mail that are worth at least $120 at your nearest grocery store or farmers market. And there’s no catch.
Cards with $120 per school child are landing in the mail along win instructions from the state of Vermont. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
They require minimal effort to activate and they are landing with parents of school-aged children right up through high school.
No one had to apply. The pre-loaded cards are being sent to everyone who had at least one child in school last school year.
Why?
The Vermont P-EBT cards are the result of a special pandemic program from the federal government that provided free school meals to students in the 2022-23 school year. A goal of the program was pandemic recovery including helping families with food costs that have risen in recent years.
The funding for the program, however, didn’t stop when school let out for the summer. There was enough to stretch into the summer weeks, so the state of Vermont was required to pass along $120 per student to help cover meal costs over summer vacation.
In some cases, if a child had a COVID-19 related absence in the last school year, there may be additional funds of just over $8 per day loaded onto their family’s card to cover missed meals if schools were tracking such absences.
The bottom line: $9.98 million is headed to Vermont parents.
The cards have been sent out by the Vermont Department for Children and Families in two parts: a letter explaining the program with instructions on how to activate and use the card and a separate envelope with the actual card. The information stresses that this money is being sent to all families with children in school regardless of income or need. No one had to ask.
Anore Horton is executive director of Hunger Free Vermont, a statewide nonprofit education and advocacy organization dedicated to reducing injustice around food insecurity. She said it’s important for families to know this is a unique opportunity meant to benefit both individual families and the community in general.
“This specific pandemic economic recovery program is completely separate from other nutrition programs and food resources,” she said. “People might assume it’s a finite pot—that if you use it, you take away from someone else. But that’s not how this program works.”
The program is a way for federal food dollars to flow directly into local communities, to farmers, to general stores and grocery stores, and to those who work at these businesses, Horton said. “And now with the catastrophic flooding that has hit so many of our farmers and local businesses so hard, these extra food funds are even more important.”
So what began as a pandemic-recovery program is now being distributed during a time of significant upheaval in Vermont due to the July flooding. The timing makes the influx of nearly $10 million an even greater-than-anticipated benefit to many families who have had economic hardship because of flood impacts and to grocers and producers in Vermont’s food network.
Horton described it as “reseeding” millions back into the Vermont economy.
About the cards
Card closeup
Funds are already loaded onto the cards and will be available for 274 days. Know that any unused money goes back to the federal government.
Use the cards to purchase food items only (no paper products, cleaners, toothpaste, diapers, etc.)
You cannot give your card to someone else or donate it to an organization such as your local food shelf or homeless shelter.
You can use it to buy groceries that you then donate to a food shelf or organization in need.
Setting up the card
The letters coming in the mail have instructions to activate the card. It lists your child’s name and the dollar amount of the benefit on the card.
Use your oldest child’s birthdate when prompted.
Using the 9-digit account number on the letter, type in the last 4 digits when asked for the last digits of a Social Security Number. The program does not have SSNs for students. The numbers assigned on the letters work for this piece of information to match with your card.
Choose a 4-digit PIN to use when using the card.
The P-EBT cards are accepted at most grocery stores around Vermont. Locally, the Waterbury Village Market, Shaw’s, Sunflower Natural Foods and Woodstock Market all accept the cards.
They also can be used at farmers markets including the Waterbury Farmers Market where purchases of prepared foods are also eligible through Aug. 18. To use a card at the farmers market, look for Market Manager Christine Cameron who sells vegetables across from Mediterranean Mix near the bandstand. She has a market manager sign at her booth and can run cards.
You can always donate
Formerly the food shelf, the first floor at 57 S. Main St. is now the Waterbury Common Market. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti
While those familiar with the program stress that redeeming the cards does not take away a benefit from someone more in need, anyone who may not want to use the card for their own groceries can simply use it to purchase food to donate.
Sara Whitehair is director of the Waterbury Common Market (formerly the Waterbury Area Food Shelf) at 57 South Main Street. The food pantry recently expanded into a larger area of its building with ample room for stocking, displaying and storing food.
Donations of non-perishable items are always welcome, Whitehair said, and now the market has even more shelf space for displays to broaden the variety it can offer its patrons.
Some suggestions for grocery items to toss into a donation for the Common Market include: hearty soups like Progresso or Campbell’s Chunky soup, canned stews, mac and cheese, (chunky) peanut butter and jelly, breakfast cereal, granola and cereal bars, packaged snacks, nuts; baking mixes such as brownies or cookie and cake mixes (frosting too), canned chicken, shelf-stable milk.
Hours to drop off at 57 S. Main are Mondays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., and Wednesdays 3-5 p.m. Shaw’s and the Village Market have collection bins for the Common Market.
For more information about the program, help with setting up a card, or a replacement card (in case you lost or tossed yours) call 1-800-479-6151, option 7. The Vermont Department For Children and Families Economic Services Division is administering the program.