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PORTLAND, Ore. – The Walmart Foundation’s Oregon State Giving Program recently awarded $446,250 to eight Oregon nonprofits including Willamette Farm and Food, Food for Lane County, Portland Adventist Community Services, Boys and Girls Club of Albany, Portland State University Foundation, Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital, Grow Portland and ACCESS.

Twice a year, The Walmart Foundation’s Oregon State Giving Program awards grants to local organizations that address the needs of the communities they serve and make a significant social impact. Combined with $208,000 given to organizations earlier in 2013, Walmart provided a total of $654,250 to Oregon-based groups for the year.

“We are proud to support the efforts of these eight organizations to achieve our shared goal of helping communities throughout Oregon live better,” said Madeleine Havener, vice president for Walmart. “Walmart strongly believes in giving back locally, and we look forward to watching these great organizations continue their work and find new ways to positively impact lives.”
Willamette Farm and Food received $26,000 to help support Oregon Farm to School Education, Family Outreach, and School Garden Programs.

“This grant will allow us to continue to offer our Farm to School Program education program for children and families and to continue to serve as a resource to farm to school programs throughout Oregon. By educating students about where their food comes from and connecting their families with resources to access healthy, locally grown food, we are giving them the opportunity to connect with their local food system, creating healthier children and a stronger community,” said Megan Kemple, Farm to School Program Director, Willamette Farm and Food Coalition

Food for Lane County received $50,000 to help support food distribution throughout Lane County.

“Childhood hunger is a very serious problem in Lane County. Too many children arrive at school unprepared to learn or focus due to empty stomachs. And during summer months, many families are unable to provide the lunches normally available during the school year. Walmart’s $50,000 donation will enable us to increase the amount of healthy nutritious food we provide to kids during and after the school year through our Cereal for Youth and Summer Food programs. Children need good nutrition to create a solid foundation that has implications for a child’s future physical and mental health, academic achievement, and economic productivity,” said Beverlee Hughes, Executive Director, Food for Lane County
Portland Adventist Community Services received $62,738 that will be used to purchase a new van for meal delivery and food distribution.

“The new truck will allow PACS to pick up perishable food from a number of local stores and the Oregon Food Bank. The food will then be distributed at the PACS Food Pantry and its Mobile Food Pantry to low-income families. In addition, it will enhance PACS’s ability to accept fresh and non-perishable food since this vehicle will keep these items refrigerated during transport to the pantry”. Paul Cole, Executive Director, PACS

Boys and Girls Club of Albany received $50,738 that helps to support and further the “Training Teens for Tomorrow Workforce Development Project”.

“To be ready for entry- level work and then move to the next level, young people must exhibit basic work and interpersonal skills, professionalism and develop transferable work skills that prepare them for careers in their chosen field while conveying the necessity of staying in school and attaining graduation. Thanks to the generous support from the Walmart Foundation’s State Giving Program, the Club’s T3 program will be able to provide more than 100 teens with the chance to gain job training and paid work experience, volunteer and community service experience, socialization with peers, academic success coaching, preparation for the future and on-going relationship-building with caring adult role models. We are thrilled to be able to leverage this grant award from the Walmart Foundation and to offer even more vulnerable youth the opportunity to create pathways out of poverty,” said Michelle Davis, Chief Professional Officer, Boys and Girls Club of Albany
Portland State University Foundation received $98,608 which will help to build the “Expanding Harvest for Healthy Kids Program”, a nutrition program for low-income children in Multnomah County.

“This additional funding from the Walmart Foundation will allow us to scale up our outreach to more children and their families,” said Betty Izumi, an assistant professor in PSU’s School of Community Health and co-director of Harvest for Healthy Kids. “We’ve been working in Head Start classrooms since 2010 and we’ve seen that this approach can make a difference,” said Betty Izumi, Assistant Professor, Harvest for Healthy Kids
Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital received $63,904 for the “Health Professional Preparation Program”.

“This grant will enable Oregon Pacific Area Health Education Center, as the educational outreach department of Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital, to expand our Healthcare Professional Preparation Program to fourteen high schools and more than 300 students in our nine county region. Due to the generosity and vision of the Walmart Foundation, these students, who come from underserved and rural areas, will be better equipped academically and intellectually to graduate and move into professional healthcare training and educational tracks,” said Donald Skinner, Executive Director, Oregon Pacific Area Health Education Center

Grow Portland was awarded $45,000 to help promote and expand the “Urban Agriculture 2020 Initiative”.

“Grow Portland is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the expansion of urban gardening and urban agriculture in the Portland Metropolitan Area. Founded in 2010, the organization is focused on creating thriving gardens on previously underutilized urban land. In three years, the organization built three community gardens providing 200 garden plots to around 600 participants. This year, thanks to help from Walmart, Grow Portland is launching it’s Urban Agriculture 2020 initiative that aims to add half a million square feet of urban food production by the year 2020. The goal of this initiative is to build urban agricultural spaces that offer varied ways for the residents around these gardens to be involved in growing healthy food for their family and community,” said David Beller, Director Grow Portland

ACCESS received $50,000 to help develop their nutrition programs, including the “Store Food Recovery Program.”

“Thanks to the generous grant from the Walmart Foundation we have been able to expand our Food Recovery program and the amount of food distributed from an average of 56,000 pounds monthly to over 80,000 pounds. This will increase our capacity and ability to ensure that thousands of hungry families in Jackson County will have more fresh meat, dairy and produce on their tables this winter and beyond,” said Philip Yates, Nutrition Director, ACCESS

Earlier this year, Walmart’s Oregon State Giving Program granted $208,000 to five nonprofits from Portland, Salem, and Corvallis including:

$35,000, Community Outreach (Corvallis) for the creation of a new transitional shelter for women and children.

$30,000, Salem-Keizer Education Foundation (Salem) to assist with expansion of Learning Gardens program to four additional Salem-Keizer Schools.

$30,000, Human Solutions (Portland) to provides Healthy Food choices to low-income working families living in Human Solutions housing.

$35,000, Our House of Portland (Portland) to provide additional access to healthy food and nutrition education for HIV/AIDS individuals in the Portland area.

$50,000, Portland Rescue Mission (Portland) to aid with expansion of services for homeless women and children.
To be considered for support, perspective grantee organizations must submit applications through the Walmart Foundation State Giving Program’s online grant application. Applicants must have a current 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in order to meet the program’s minimum eligibility criteria. Additional information about the program’s funding guidelines and application process are available online at www.walmartfoundation.org/stategiving. The current application cycle opened on January 19, 2014.

This Press Release is courtesy www.walmart.com

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