| | 2025–26 Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program and
Try Agriculture Samples with Tastes and Education Incentive Grants
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Nutrition Services Division |
This application is for the California Department of Education (CDE) 2025–26 Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) and the FFVP Try Agriculture Samples with Tastes and Education (TASTE) Incentive grants.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers the FFVP at the federal level; the CDE Nutrition Services Division (NSD) administers the FFVP in California.
The grant period is July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026 (School Year [SY] 2025–26). |
California’s FFVP funding for SY 2025–26 is expected to total $15 million. The NSD will provide funding to school food authorities (SFA) operating elementary schools as long as funds are available. Grants will be awarded on a reimbursement basis. As required by federal law, the NSD selects schools by application criteria and percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price (F/RP) meals. Priority is given to elementary schools with the highest relative F/RP percentages to the maximum extent practicable.
Please Note: For the last eight years, the percentage of enrolled students eligible for F/RP meals at elementary schools awarded the FFVP grant has been 86 percent or higher.
Grant awards are based on student enrollment. Amount awarded ranges from $50 to $75 per student per school. |
| One-time additional federal funding of approximately $1.8 million is available to FFVP awardees in SY 2025–26. This funding is called the FFVP TASTE Incentive grant. While the amount of each FFVP TASTE Incentive award will vary based on student enrollment, it is estimated to be an additional ten percent of an agency’s total FFVP award. Applicants will have the opportunity to accept or refuse a grant award once they are notified of the FFVP TASTE Incentive grant funding amount. The option to participate in the FFVP TASTE Incentive grant funding is incorporated into this SY 2025–26 FFVP grant application. |
IMPORTANT: All eligible SFAs must submit a separate online application for each elementary school interested in applying for the 2025–26 FFVP and FFVP TASTE Incentive grants. This includes both current FFVP grantees (2024–25) and new applicants.
Submit only one application per school site. For assistance with completing this application or if corrections are needed to your application after submittal, please contact the CDE FFVP Team by email at FFVP@cde.ca.gov.
The application must be completed online. The CDE NSD will not consider or accept email, fax, mail, hard copy applications, or partial submissions as a complete submission. The Submit button must be selected for your application to be transmitted to the CDE to be accepted as a complete submission. |
This online grant application should take approximately 30 minutes to complete. All questions must be answered.
Before applying, determine the total number of elementary school sites for which your SFA plans to submit an application for, verify with the district superintendent that your SFA has administrative jurisdiction over the school site(s) contained in the application to avoid disqualification, and read the USDA's FFVP: A Handbook for Schools available on the USDA FNS Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Program – A Handbook for Schools web page and the California FFVP Guidelines available on the CDE FFVP Guidelines web page. Additionally, guidelines for the FFVP TASTE Incentive are available on the CDE FFVP web page on the TASTE tab. |
For a PDF copy of the grant application, select the Print Responses button and save the application as a PDF to your desktop. You will also have the opportunity to print your responses on the last page of the application.
Once you complete your application, you may select the Submit button only once. Once you select the Submit button, you will not be able to make any corrections and your application will be transmitted to the CDE. You will be redirected to the CDE FFVP Grant Request for Applications (RFA) web page and the CDE will provide an email confirmation to all of the contacts included in this application, excluding the district superintendent. If you do not receive an email confirmation within two hours of submitting the application, check the accuracy of the contact information you have provided and whether another contact on your grant team has received the email confirmation. If your team has not received an email confirmation, you may need to resubmit your application. |
For assistance or to check that your application was submitted, please contact the CDE FFVP Team by email at FFVP@cde.ca.gov.
For more information about the FFVP, visit the CDE FFVP web page. Review the instructions and documents on the CDE FFVP Grant RFA web page before you begin this application. |
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