Meal Program Sponsors

Sponsors administer, plan and implement the Meal Program. They provide the meals and snacks to their sites. A representative from the sponsoring organization agrees to act as the legal and fiscal authority. These are often school superintendents, nutrition service people, business managers, executive directors, or in some cases administrative assistants or secretaries.

Sponsors agree to:

• Sign a contract with the Oregon Department of Education
• Abide by the rules, requirements and regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• Maintain accurate records
• Create menus
• Develop and implement management plans
• Provide the meals, infrastructure, training and support for their programming sites

Sponsors can be public (school districts, tribal agencies, etc), private non-profit, and sometimes for-profit agencies. Sponsors may or may not be directly involved in afterschool programming. In many cases sponsors – especially school districts – provide meals to other organizations actually running the afterschool program.