W.K. Kellogg Foundation announces more than $7 million in grants in support of Flint's children and families

BATTLE CREEK, Mich., Aug. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is awarding $7.1 million of support to more than a dozen nonprofits and organizations supporting the work of Flint's recovery from the water and lead crisis and revitalizing the city to ensure a bright future for Flint children and families. The majority of WKKF grants are to organizations on the ground, based in Flint, while some national resources will bring knowledge and experiences to the community.

The water and lead crisis, stemming from the corrosion of lead pipes, contaminated Flint's potable water and caused elevated blood lead levels in the city's nearly 9,000 children under the age of 6. It was also a clarion call for aggressively renewed community engagement in Flint.

With these grants to various organizations and institutions, including Flint Rising, the Early Childhood Development Center at the University of Michigan-Flint, Mott Community College, the Genesee County Health Department and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, the foundation hopes to:

• Advance solutions affecting the health, well-being, education and economic future of our children;
• Reduce and mitigate children's exposure to lead and other contaminants;
• Address poverty and disinvestment in Flint and the surrounding metropolitan region, particularly for communities of color; and
• Finally, and, potentially most paramount, focus on community engagement and the importance of strengthening the community's voice to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to thrive. 

"We stand with Flint, as city residents continue to recover from the effects of the lead contamination and the city works toward its recovery," said La June Montgomery Tabron, WKKF president and CEO.  "We recognize this opportunity to join our philanthropic partners like the C.S. Mott Foundation and other partners in helping ensure responsive health care, quality early education and an economically thriving city."

As part of this effort, foundation leadership has engaged in strategic conversations with its philanthropic partners and city leadership to assist the city in its recovery.

"We appreciate the Kellogg Foundation's partnership, in concert with other philanthropic funders, which will help the city mobilize and respond to the many challenges caused by the water and lead crisis. More importantly, the support will lift up our community's voice and strengthen our children and families for generations to come," said Flint Mayor Karen Weaver. 

Learn more about the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's community engagement in Flint at www.wkkf.org and about mitigating lead contamination in schools in the WKKF-commissioned report Managing Lead in Drinking Water at Schools and Early Childhood Education Facilities.

WKKF Grants

Flint Rising through Tides Foundation as intermediary

Genesee County Community Action Resource Department

Genesee County Health Department

Genesee County Hispanic Latino Collaborative

Michigan Faith in Action

Mott Community College

St. John Hospital and Medical Center

Regents of the University of California – Agriculture and Natural Resources

Regents of the University of Michigan-Flint

Community Foundation of Greater Flint

Environmental Defense Fund, Inc.

Fair Food Network

American Public Health Association

University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine

Horsley Witten Group, Inc.

About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to help break the cycle of poverty by removing barriers based on race or income that hold back children, so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.

The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.

SOURCE W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Related Links

http://www.wkkf.org