NMHSD News:
SANTA FE — Families for 21,328 New Mexico students will receive benefits, Sunday April 10, to reimburse them for free and reduced-price school meals missed due to COVID-related absences.
Approximately, $1,479,931 in Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) will be issued to cover meals that K-12 students missed in October and November of last year, after schools returned to in-person learning.
The issuance amount is $7.10 per day the child was absent from school due to COVID.
Around 21,400 school-aged children grade level K-12 will be eligible for an issuance.
“Good nutrition is essential fuel to focus and learn in school as well as grow in life,” said Angela Medrano, deputy cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Human Services Department. “The goal of this assistance is to not just reimburse families, but to also help provide continued care for New Mexico’s children.”
To date, 1,563 students have already received their P-EBT cards with an additional 3,635 soon to receive their cards for the first time.
Beginning April 13, parents and guardians will be able to check whether their child qualified for the latest P-EBT issuance at VERIFY P-EBT Information section of the Human Services Department’s YesNM portal.
If a child has a P-EBT card, it should be kept and not destroyed. If a new address or guardian was reported to the school, a new P-EBT card will be sent to the new address.
For questions regarding your child’s P-EBT card, you can contact NM P-EBT Hotline at 1.833.415.0569. For questions regarding absences reported for your child, contact the child’s school.
Answers to other frequently asked questions can also be found online at https://www.hsd.state.nm.us/lookingforassistance/p-ebt/.
The Department wants to ensure their clients of uninterrupted access to the benefits available to them. The easiest way to do this is make sure that your address is up to date on the YesNM website: www.yes.state.nm.us. Users can simply and easily update their address using the chat functionality there. Step-by-step directions on how to update your address are available here.
We talk, interpret and smile in all languages. The Department provides written information to customers in both English and Spanish and interpretation services are available in 58 languages through their provider, CTS Language Link. For hearing, and speech impaired customers, they utilize Relay New Mexico, a free 24-hour service that ensures equal communication access via the telephone to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind or speech disabled.
About NMHSD
The Human Services Department provides services and benefits to 1,057,175 New Mexicans through several programs including: the Medicaid Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Child Support Program, and several Behavioral Health Services.
