Summer Food Stamps 2025 – Know Amount, Eligibility & Payment Date

Summer Food Stamps 2025 provides eligible families with public assistance in which they can get access to additional food support. The initiative ensures that children continue to get support to get their meals even during school breaks.

Many children rely on this reduced price or free meals at the time of their school year. But due to summer breaks the families have to struggle to provide the daily nutritious food to children. To address this burden, public assistance such as Summer Food Stamps 2025 is implemented to reduce the burden by offering $120 per eligible child.

Summer Food Stamps 2025

The US government plans to provide essential nutrition food support to eligible families with the help of their summer food stamps 2025. The benefits are provided via EBT cards or coupons during summer vacations.

When schools are not closed, students get nutritional meals. Still, when it is summer, it becomes difficult for families to meet their daily food needs, especially for low-income families. USDA’s Sun Bucks program is also continuing this year. It was launched in 2024 with the intent to minimize child hunger by providing children with food support during the summer holidays.

Sun Bucks Program Overview

Organization	United States Department of Agriculture
Program Name	Summer Food Stamps 2025
Country	USA
Amount	$120 (per child)
Distribution Timeline	May to August 2025
Payout Mode	EBT Card or Food Coupons
States Involved	CA, NY, IL, MI (varies by state)
Use of Funds	Buy groceries
Category	Government Aid
Official Website	https://www.usda.gov/

Eligibility Criteria for Summer Food Stamps

Families are qualified to receive the summer food assistance for the year 2025, and the benefits are distributed via EBT cards. Here are the eligibility requirements to avail yourself of nutritional food support assistance:

• Households already enrolled in the public assistance program TANF, Medicaid, SNAP, FDPIR and others are automatically qualified for the benefits.
• Children have to enroll in school programs such as breakfast programs or National School lunch, and also, they are receiving reduced prices or free meals.
• The benefit is for children between the age group 6 to 18 and given to those eligible children who face food insecurity because of not getting meals in summer.
• In case a household is not automatically qualified to avail of the public benefits, but if their income lies 185% of the federal poverty line, they can still apply to avail the benefit vouchers.

Who Needs to Apply for Summer Food Stamps

Summer EBT benefits are provided to families who require nutritional food for their children because of the summer breaks. Here are the key highlights that suggest the application is required if:

• If the summer EBT program didn’t include or enroll your child automatically.
• Your household earnings fall under the threshold set at 185% regarding the federal poverty rate.
• If a family of three earns below the income of $47,767 annually, they are qualified.
• If your family is not getting any public assistance benefit but still meets the income eligibility requirement.

State-Wise Distribution Schedule for Summer Food Stamps

The USDA provides the summer EBT benefits across various states to assist eligible families during the summer holiday breaks. Each state has its own timeline and distribution process. Below are the state-wise updates:

1. Illinois

• The benefits will be issued between the time frame of May 19 and May 26, 2025.
• The qualified households are included in this Summer Food Stamp program.

2. New York

• The eligibility letters start arriving on June 2.
• The initiation of EBT payments commence from June 18, 2025.
• Families who are not getting the expected benefits can get help from the department.

3. California

• The cards are reloaded, or the newly issued cards will be given to eligible families throughout June.
• Once the card is processed, eligible families can access the full Summer Food Stamps benefit.

4. Michigan

• Those applicants had existing cards or were even issued new ones once the payments were loaded in May.
• April 15 was the priority deadline, but the applications remain open till August 31.

USDA Summer EBT 2025

The USDA summer EBT program continues to provide significant assistance to eligible school children between 6 and 18 years old. It aims to reach every household impacted by the free school meals as they are not getting them during the holidays. The assistance given to the children is $120 during the summer vacations.

The benefits are distributed to the children via EBT cards or coupons. The goal is to provide access to healthy food as the school meal programs are temporarily on pause due to holidays. States that roll out their payment timings between May and June are California, Michigan, New York, and Illinois.

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