Amerigroup Foundation Awards Four New Grants to Boys & Girls Clubs in Maryland

Grants provide $16,500 of funding for Triple Play healthy lifestyles program

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Nov 17, 2014, 09:30 ET

BALTIMORE, Nov. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Boys & Girls Clubs of America announced today that Amerigroup Foundation will award four new Triple Play grants to local Boys & Girls Clubs in Maryland to improve the health and wellness of kids in the state. Thanks to the generous support of partners like Amerigroup Foundation, the Triple Play program in Boys & Girls Clubs in Maryland helped more than 2,000 youth engage in regular physical activity last year.

The grants help provide programming during out-of-school time that supports a healthy, active lifestyle. Boys & Girls Clubs around the state will receive a variety of grants to support Triple Play programming, focusing on being healthy holistically through the mind, body and soul.

Amerigroup Foundation will be issuing the following grants to Clubs:

Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore, O'Donnell Heights Unit and Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, Drew Freeman Middle School will each receive a $5,000 Mind, Body & Soul Grant to implement Triple Play programming at their location for the first time.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Frederick County will receive a $5,000 Focus Grant to provide programming that teaches the importance of healthy eating habits and being physically active. The Club will also use the grant to focus on increasing physical activity, and fruit and vegetable consumption.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Baltimore will receive a $1,500 Gamesroom Grant to facilitate additional socialization as well as positive physical and mental activities at their Club.

"Amerigroup's commitment will help kids to better understand how to maintain healthy habits," said Vince Ancona, president of Amerigroup in Maryland. "The Triple Play program and Boys & Girls Clubs have joined us to educate kids, and build a solid foundation that will help them to continue making healthy choices about nutrition and exercise into their adult lives."

As Boys & Girls Clubs of America's proven health and wellness program, Triple Play is a game plan for the mind, body and soul. Supported by founding sponsor The Coca-Cola Company and co-sponsor, Amerigroup, the program's three components encourage Club members to eat healthier (mind), become more physically active (body) and increase their ability to engage in healthy relationships (soul). Since the program's inception in 2005, Triple Play has made 9.2 million connections with kids.

"Triple Play continues to be one of the most utilized programs in Boys & Girls Clubs around the country – changing the opportunity equation for kids' health today," said Wayne B. Moss, BGCA's senior director of healthy lifestyles. "Without the support of our partners like Amerigroup, we would not be able to impact so many kids each year. Triple Play provides much needed healthy lifestyles programming to kids who need it most, creating a positive foundation for them to grow and thrive as healthy, responsible adults."

Amerigroup Foundation is committed to improving health and strengthening Maryland communities. Through its Healthy Generations grant program, Amerigroup Foundation works to identify the issues most in need of attention and then directs its financial support and volunteer efforts toward improving health in those areas. Promoting youth health and active lifestyles is an ongoing focus of the foundation.

The Triple Play grants announced today are part of a five-year, $10 million commitment from Amerigroup's parent company foundation to Boys & Girls Clubs of America to promote healthy lifestyles.

About Triple Play
Triple Play: A healthy lifestyles Game Plan for the Mind, Body and Soul, was launched in 2005 by Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services and with support from The Coca-Cola Company. The goal of Triple Play is to encourage kids to eat healthier, become more physically active and increase their ability to engage in healthy relationships. A two-year study of more than 2,000 children ages 9-14 showed that Triple Play succeeded in getting them to exercise more, eat healthier foods and feel better about themselves. The study found that Triple Play kids increased to 90 percent of the federally recommended amount of daily exercise, which is 60 minutes a day for children, while their peers outside the program decreased to 78 percent. Triple Play includes five program components, each of which serves between 20,000 and 500,000 youth annually. Since its inception in 2005, Triple Play has made more than 9.2 million connections with kids across the country. In 2011, the WellPoint Foundation joined BGCA and Coca-Cola as a Triple Play sponsor. Learn more about the program at www.bgca.org/tripleplay.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America
For more than 100 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (GreatFutures.org) has enabled young people most in need to achieve great futures as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, more than 4,100 Clubs serve nearly 4 million young people annually through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs are located in cities, towns, public housing and on Native lands throughout the country, and serve military families in BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. They provide a safe place, caring adult mentors, fun, friendship, and high-impact youth development programs on a daily basis during critical non-school hours. Priority programs emphasize academic success, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. In a Harris Survey of alumni, 57 percent said the Club saved their lives. National headquarters are located in Atlanta. Learn more at http://www.bgca.org/facebook and http://bgca.org/twitter.

About Amerigroup Foundation
The Amerigroup Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Amerigroup, a wholly owned subsidiary of WellPoint, Inc. Together, with local, regional and national organizations, the Amerigroup Foundation works to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and families in communities that Amerigroup and its affiliated health plans serve. Amerigroup Foundation funding is focused on strategic initiatives working to address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative with five areas of focus: Healthy Heart, Cancer Prevention, Healthy Maternal Practices, Type 2 Diabetes Prevention, and Healthy Active Lifestyle. These disease states and medical conditions include: prenatal care in the first trimester, low birth weight babies, cardiac morbidity rates, long term activities that decrease obesity and increase physical activity, diabetes prevalence in adult populations, adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations and smoking cessation. The Foundation also coordinates the company's year-round Associate Giving program which provides a 50 percent match of associates' pledges, as well as its Volunteer Time Off and Dollars for Doers community service programs. To learn more about the Amerigroup Foundation, please visit www.wellpointfoundation.org.

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SOURCE Boys & Girls Clubs of America