Pandemic EBT
Pandemic EBT was a food assistance benefit distributed in 2020 and 2021 to families with children who qualified for free and reduced price school meals. The program - funded by the federal government and implemented by states - rolled out fast. One state administrator we spoke with called it “the wild west of P-EBT.” It was rolled out in two phases over the pandemic, and each state implemented each phase of P-EBT differently; some attempted to automatically affirm families’ eligibility by obtaining school district and state level eligibility and mailing address data. Others solicited some families to apply to prove their eligibility.
SFUSD used the P-EBT informational materials we helped develop to reach their 29,000 eligible students.
In phase 1, California had an application, and it was all hands on deck to get the word out about to families. In phase 2, the state attempted to automatically screen students for eligibility and mail them cards automatically. Through both phases - dubbed 1.0 and 2.0 in California - we worked with local school districts, advocacy organizations, and CBOs to help raise awareness among parents and organizations about this supportive food assistance resource.
P-EBT 1.0 in California
During P-EBT 1.0, we tracked which of the over 150 school districts for which we regularly updated school meal information for our mobile-friendly school meal website BayAreaCommunity.org were providing families information about the P-EBT application. We emailed informational materials and multilingual resources to the school that didn’t, also answering school administrators questions about program specifics and eligibility.
We implemented a banner on BayAreaCommunity.org directing families to Code for America’s application, tailoring the banner’s language with the help of Tia Shimada at Nourish California.
Hearing word that P-EBT “2.0’ would be rolled out in California, we conducted interviews with state P-EBT administrators in 5 states, compiled their responses into best practices and recommendations, and presented them to the California Department of Social Services to help inform P-EBT 2.0’s implementation.
P-EBT 2.0 in California
Pandemic EBT 2.0 in California did not have an application. CDSS extracted data directly from schools to affirm student’s eligibility and mailing address. Therefore, there was an urgent push to ensure all eligible families updating their school income and address information by the “data pull” deadline. Our partners at SFUSD sought support in helping develop accessible, clear, friendly communications for families to guide them through the process of updating their information in the school district’s portal, and answers parents’ questions and concerns about P-EBT 2.0. We partnered with SFUSD to help them develop their P-EBT 2.0 outreach and advocacy campaign, researching the minute details of P-EBT policy, responding to staff and parent questions, developing language for robocall scripts, robotexts, and emails, interviewing migrant education coordinators to help strategize unique outreach strategies for hard-to-reach families, attended state webinars informing advocates and implementers about P-EBT status, and more. We also helped inform our unBox community of advocates about P-EBT’s status in California.