The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) is a federally funded program which is administered and funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). The purpose of the program is to ensure that eligible children and adults who attend qualifying care facilities receive nutritious meals and snacks. Children age 12 and younger are eligible to receive up to two nutritious meals and one snack, each day, at a day care home or center, through CACFP.

To accomplish this purpose, CACFP provides reimbursement to qualified caregivers for meals and supplements (snacks) served to participants. While the FNS develops the regulations and establishes the policies needed to conduct the program, state agencies are responsible for administering the program on the State level and for assisting sponsors , such as Healthy Kids, on the local level.

CACFP provides reimbursement for meals and snacks served to small groups of children receiving nonresidential day care in licensed or approved private homes. A family or group day care home must sign an agreement with a sponsoring organization, such as Healthy Kids, to participate in CACFP. The sponsoring organization organizes training, conducts monitoring, and helps with planning menus and filling out reimbursement forms. The day care provider is responsible for planning meals that meets the current meal pattern, serving the planned meals to every child and maintaining and submitting the appropriate paperwork for reimbursement.