Outside of the Frederick Douglass Community Center in Southeast, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a $1,000 grant for families who received government assistance from the District to ease back-to-school costs.
Roughly 15,000 participating families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program will receive the benefit from the Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund on their EBT cards this month.
Bowser made the announcement while at a hiring event in Ward 8.
“We are disbursing these funds now to give families an extra cash bump during a busy time of year so that our students and families can have a strong start to an important school year,” Bowser said, in part.
Bowser told participants that after assessing ways to utilize pandemic emergency assistance funds, she and the District’s Department of Human Services knew this would be the most effective.
“That’s going to help make sure that if your kids need supplemental supplies for computers or software or even extracurricular activities,” Bowser told the audience.
Department of Human Services Director Laura Green Zeilinger added that the grant was geared toward limiting stigma and stress for families facing scarcity this August.
“We know that the pace of economic recovery is not the same for all households,” Green Zeilinger said. “We are thrilled to be able to provide one-time payments to families receiving TANF as they prepare for back to school.”
These payments come behind $41 million in summer pandemic food assistance that Bowser announced in July.
“We know that we’re going to spend several years making up for the disconnect of kids from school because of COVID, and everything that we can do to support kids, schools and families is just going to help a little bit more,” said Bowser.
