Lunch at the Library Grant Program

Lunch at the Library is a California State Library program supported with funds from the State of California. The program provides funds and support to California public libraries and related eligible library organizations that help provide summer meals for children and youth. The opportunity is designed to connect library services with summer nutrition programs and to strengthen the role of libraries as community locations where children, youth, and families can receive meals, educational opportunities, and related services. The awarding agency is the California State Library. The program supports several approaches to providing summer meals and related library services. Participating libraries may establish library locations as U.S. Department of Agriculture summer meal sites or take pop-up library services to other USDA community meal sites. Funds and program support may also be used to provide learning and enrichment opportunities and wraparound community services in conjunction with meals served. The program additionally seeks to connect families with locally sourced, sustainable food and hands-on food education opportunities. Applicants must be prepared either to serve as a library meal site, provide pop-up library services to an existing community meal site, or undertake the applicable combination of these activities described by the program. Eligible applicants must be located within California and must be a Public Library, Library Friends or Foundation Group, or Library Consortium. In addition to meeting one of these organizational requirements, applicants must be prepared to serve as a library meal site and/or provide pop-up library services to an existing community meal site. The source does not identify a required cash or in-kind match. It also does not provide a predetermined minimum or maximum award amount, total program funding amount, or number of awards. Applicants are specifically instructed to enter $1 into the budget when initially submitting the application; this is an administrative placeholder rather than a stated award amount. After the application period closes and applications are reviewed, the Lunch at the Library team will notify applicants of their actual award amounts and provide instructions for updating the application budget. Indirect costs are allowed. Applicants may choose not to request indirect costs, may use a current federally approved indirect cost rate or a federal rate pending review that will be approved by the project start date, or may use an indirect cost rate not exceeding 10 percent of modified total direct costs. Applicants using a current or pending federally approved indirect cost rate must attach supporting documentation to the application. Indirect costs are described as incurred costs that cannot readily be isolated or identified with a single project or activity, including examples such as general telephone service, postage, office supplies, office space expenses, and administrative or financial operations for an entire organization. The application period opens September 1, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. Applications are due October 14, 2026 at 12:00 noon. The source does not state a time zone for these times. No separate letter of intent, concept paper, pre-proposal, notice of intent, or other pre-application gating deadline is identified in the provided material. Applicants submit through the GoToMyGrants opportunity associated with the program, and the source provides a downloadable application from that opportunity page. The source does not provide formal scored evaluation criteria or a complete list of application questions. It does state that applications will be reviewed by the Lunch at the Library team after the application period closes. Final funding amounts are expected to be communicated in December. The award period begins February 1, 2027 and ends January 31, 2028. Questions may be directed to Robyn McCreight at Lunch@library.ca.gov or 916-603-6716. Additional program information is available through the California State Library Lunch at the Library program page. The supplied opportunity information does not state that this funding opportunity recurs annually or on another regular schedule, so no recurrence or future-cycle date is established from the provided source.

Align proposed activities with library summer meal-site and/or pop-up library services and the program's stated learning, enrichment, wraparound service, locally sourced sustainable food, or hands-on food education objectives. Enter $1 in the initial budget as instructed and provide supporting documentation when using the applicable federal indirect cost-rate option.