In partnership with the Department of Public Health and Social Services (DPHSS), the Guam Department of Education (GDOE) will soon be rolling out another batch of Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) cards for students and high school graduates of School Year 2020-2021.
As PNC previously reported, P-EBT cards are federally funded and offered through the food and nutrition services of the United States Department of Agriculture. These funds were meant to cover lost school meals over the pandemic school years of 2020 to 2021.
On Newstalk K57 with Patti Arroyo, Janela Carrera, Public Information Officer for DPHSS, reported that a round of P-EBT reloads is forthcoming.
“What we want to do now is work over all the details like distribution date, distribution site, where we’re going to set it all up, and loading of the funds,” said Carrera. “We’re just finalizing all the details.”
Currently, DPHSS is looking at multiple different distribution sites. They are in contact with the Micronesia mall, Guam Premier Outlets, among other locations.
The details of using either multiple different sites or just one are still being reviewed.
What’s new
“One of the other things that’s new about P-EBT 2.0–that’s what we’re calling it, because the first round was P-EBT 1.0–[is that] we have an additional 7,000 children that are also eligible or set to receive the benefit as well,” said Carrera.
The eligible population has expanded to children who are 6 years and under who qualify for the SNAP benefits, students who are late applicants from the school year 2020 and 2021.
Unlike the last batches of P-EBT this is a one-time issue of $483. This marks the highest distributed amount from P-EBT across all historic batches.
Those who have received the previous batches are encouraged to hold on to their cards as the reload is forthcoming within the next few months.
Carrera encourages those who lost their old cards to contact Public Health as soon as possible so that a new card may be issued for you in anticipation of the reload.
There is no exact timeline for its release but a joint press release from GDOE and DPHSS is currently in the works.
