In a press release issued this afternoon Governor Lolo Moliga announced a grant award of $500,000 by the US Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service to the American Samoa Government.
The award is through the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Act of 1973 which authorizes disaster payments to provide supplemental disaster feeding benefits.
The purpose of the grant award is to provide benefits for victims of Tropical Cyclone Gita.
Governor Lolo welcomed the award and thanked Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for approving the request he sent in March for emergency food assistance for those affected by Tropical Cyclone Gita.
He said, “Although it took several months for this request to be granted I am pleased that funding has been made available to help victims of Tropical Cyclone Gita particularly families with the greatest need for food assistance.”
The press release said that because of the limited amount of funding, benefits will be issued one time only in the form of food coupons to very low income families affected by the disaster and who can demonstrate that their need for food assistance is greater.
The ASNAP or American Samoa Nutrition Assistance Program under the Deparment of Human and Social Sevrices will administer the grant using a Disaster Relief Food Assistance plan that was approved by the Food and Nutrition Service.
DHSS will announce in the coming days how families may qualify for disaster food assistance along with other pertinent information.
This includes dates and locations where applications will be accepted, timeline for the issuance of benefits, retail stores to use their food coupons and expiration dates for those benefits.
