Valuable resources to provide food in shelters are going unused in the District of Columbia.

These resources include grant money to provide healthy meals and snacks to children in emergency shelters, including homeless, domestic violence and family shelters. And this money comes from the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), an outreach arm of the D.C. State Education Office, that receives money annually from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a variety of nutrition programs in the District.

CACFP received about $3 million in federal funding in fiscal year 2005, according to records from the advocacy group D.C. Hunger Solutions.

But no shelters applied for the money. Why?

Sources cite a range of factors, such as confusion about the application process, lack of government outreach and red tape. It’s a competitive and nerve-racking process, one shelter’s grant writer said.

Fragmentation of homeless services is another reason. “Homeless services are contracted into multiple levels, allowing people to point fingers at others," said Shana McDavis-Conway, nutrition advocate at D.C. Hunger Solutions.

McDavis-Conway said about 10 shelters in D.C. are eligible for CACFP funding, and she has reached out to many of them in the past year without success. To be eligible for participation in CACFP, an emergency shelter must provide residential and food services to homeless children and their parents or guardians. The shelter must be sponsored by a public or private nonprofit organization and it must meet state or local health and safety codes.

Shelters that participate in CACFP can receive money to help defray the cost for up to two meals and one snack daily per child served: $1.23 for breakfast, $2.40 for each lunch or supper and 65 cents per snack, according to Hunger Solutions records.

Sarah Ladner, special assistant to Cynthia Bell, executive director of Nutrition Services for the D.C. State Education Office, said one issue in marketing CACFP. She said the agency has been trying to convince shelter sponsors to put general funding toward providing other services, such as clothing, and then enrolling in CACFP to get funding specifically for food.

Meanwhile, some shelters say they still have not heard of the program, and others say they remain wary of seeking federal funds at all, which reveals a need to ramp up marketing and recruitment efforts.

Bell said, “At this point, we know we need to do additional outreach to encourage more participation in CACFP. The plan is to look at existing coalitions that already focus on homeless issues and either become part of the coalitions or begin dialogue or discussion with them.”

She added, “If [a coalition] doesn't exist, then we'd like to invite people to the table -- more like a collaborative -- then look at different services being provided." For more information about the Child and Adult Care Food Program, contact the D.C. State Education Office at 202-727-6436 or D.C. Hunger Solutions at 202-986-2200, ext. 3023.