Highmark Foundation awards grants to nearly 100 schools across Pennsylvania and West Virginia for creating a healthier environment for students

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to make schools throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia healthier places for students, the Highmark Foundation recently launched its new school strategy, Creating a Healthy School Environment, a multi-level response promoting health and wellness. As a result, the Foundation awarded grants to 97 schools and school districts across Pennsylvania and West Virginia for creating a healthier environment for students. In addition to school grants, another component of the strategy includes professional development.  

Recipients received funding for programs that address childhood injury prevention, healthy eating and physical activity and physical and environmental health. The grant breakdown across the Foundation's service area is:

Central Pennsylvania:  14 grants totaling $66,730 
Western Pennsylvania:  73 grants totaling $402,422 
West Virginia: 10 grants totaling $42,500 

The grants, which were a combination of mini-grants for individual schools and Super+ School District grants, will help enable schools to continue to create healthy school environments, actively engage leadership, integrate wellness into the overall strategy and effectively use data for continuous improvement.

"The Highmark Foundation recognizes that schools are powerful places to shape the health, education and well-being of our children," said Highmark Foundation President Yvonne Cook. "The goal of this funding opportunity is to create healthier school environments that will have sustainable and lasting effects."

During the past decade, the Highmark Foundation has taken a leadership position in combating the childhood obesity epidemic and remains committed to funding programs that are sustainable, replicable and achieve measurable outcomes.

For a complete list of the schools that received funding, click here.

About the Highmark Foundation
The Highmark Foundation is a private, charitable organization of Highmark Inc. that supports initiatives and programs aimed at improving community health. The Foundation's mission is to improve the health, well-being and quality of life for individuals who reside in the communities served by Highmark Inc. The Foundation strives to support evidence-based programs that impact multiple counties and work collaboratively to leverage additional funding to achieve replicable models. For more information, visit www.highmarkfoundation.org.

SOURCE Highmark Foundation