AJC TOP STORY: CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

Those eligible for maximum payment of about $250 per child must apply by Friday.

The Walton High School marching band performs in the end zone during Walton’s football game against Kell at Walton High on Sept. 4 in Marietta. The young musicians practice social distancing and wear masks while practicing and performing to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

After delays caused Georgia to launch its pandemic food stamp program months after other states, the agency in charge of disbursing the money has shortened the window to apply online for the benefits.

Applications to receive a maximum onetime payment of about $250 per child will be accepted through Friday — one week earlier than the original deadline.

Officials with the Division of Children and Family Services said that although the application window has been shortened, families will not miss out on the benefits if they are qualified. DFCS officials said they will manually issue the money to every family that is eligible but unable to apply online.

Only families who do not already receive food stamp benefits need to apply to the federal Pandemic-Electronic Benefits Transfer program. Applying is necessary to receive the EBT card that is used to receive and spend the money.

The parents or guardians of a little more than 1 million of Georgia’s roughly 1.8 million K-12 students are qualified for the money through the program.

The P-EBT program is the result of the federal coronavirus stimulus package that passed in March.

It got off to a slow start in Georgia. DFCS officials said it took the agency time to create the technology and system to help them identify all the children who qualified for P-EBT, including those who were not already receiving food stamps.

It is meant to feed any child from a household with income low enough to qualify

Wearing masks they only take down when playing their instruments, members of the brass section of the Walton High School marching band perform in the end zone.