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S4L Receives Grant for School Nutrition

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Strong4Life Receives Grant for School Nutrition

ATLANTA (Oct. 11, 2018) – In honor of next week’s National School Lunch Week, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Strong4Life is pleased to announce that it received a $100,000 grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation to help fund its successful statewide School Nutrition Program.

The Strong4Life School Nutrition Program aims to increase consumption of healthier foods in Georgia school lunchrooms by combining clever marketing tactics used by many fast-food marketers with evidence-based techniques from the field of behavioral economics to train cafeteria managers and staff. The program is centered on Strong4Life experts training school cafeteria team members and providing schools with an innovative toolkit that helps transform the cafeteria environment through the promotion of smart choices.

The funds from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation helped Children’s train more than 700 schools, reaching more than 550,000 children in 2017 and 2018. Since program inception, more than 2,800 school nutrition managers and staff from more than 1,500 schools across Georgia took advantage of our Strong4Life school nutrition training.

“We are passionate about enhancing the health and well-being of individuals and families in the communities we serve by making an impact on social determinants of health such as nutrition. That is why we are so proud to support Children’s Strong4Life and its efforts to improve the health of Georgia’s school children,” said Jeff Fusile, President of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia. “Today, our team visited Brumby Elementary School, where we saw firsthand how the Children’s Strong4Life School Nutrition Program has impacted the more than 900 students at the Cobb County school. It was truly impressive.”

“We appreciate the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation’s support of our School Nutrition Program, and because of their generosity, we are making an impact in Georgia’s school lunchrooms. Nearly 90% of school nutrition managers who attended the Strong4Life school nutrition training reported making a change to their cafeteria,” said Marc Welsh, Director of Wellness at Children’s.

The donation is part of a continuing relationship between Children’s and the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation. Since 2014, the foundation has provided funding to Children’s Strong4Life.

About Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation

Through charitable grant making, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Foundation LLC, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, promotes Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia’s inherent commitment to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and families in communities that the company serves. The Foundation focuses its funding on strategic initiatives that address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets specific disease states and medical conditions. These 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. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

About Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Strong4Life

From birth through school-age, Strong4Life helps parents with everything from bedtime battles and mealtime tantrums, to food parenting, picky eating, and everything in between. How? With easy-to-try tips, facts and advice from our doctors, registered dietitians and wellness experts-- who are parents, too. The Strong4Life movement focuses on equipping parents with the resources they need at home, training healthcare providers and working with schools and community to impact kids where they learn and play. Visit strong4life.com for more information.

About Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

As the only freestanding pediatric healthcare system in Georgia, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is the trusted leader in caring for kids. The not-for-profit organization’s mission is to make kids better today and healthier tomorrow through more than 60 pediatric specialties and programs, top healthcare professionals, and leading research and technology. Children’s is one of the largest pediatric clinical care providers in the country, managing more than one million patient visits annually at three hospitals, Marcus Autism Center, the Center for Advanced Pediatrics, urgent care centers and neighborhood locations. Consistently ranked among the top children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has impacted the lives of kids in Georgia, across the United States and around the world for more than 100 years thanks to generous support from the community.

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