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Two $7,500 awards will help provide healthy snacks, meals to students after school

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Jan. 12, 2017) – The Yum! Brands Foundation awarded $15,000 in grants to Family & Children’s Place, Louisville’s leading agency preventing and healing child violence, abuse, and neglect. The grants – $7,500 apiece for the PAL Coalition and Family & School Services – will provide healthy meals and snacks to students and family members who otherwise might not have access to nutritious food.

PAL is a community-based collaborative working to reduce substance abuse and provide healthy living alternatives to young people in the 7th Street corridor –Park Hill, Algonquin and Old Louisville. Family & School Services (FSS) offers after-school activities for students at Meyzeek Middle School to help them improve grades and develop positive values and social skills.

“We deeply appreciate these grants from the Yum! Brands Foundation,” said Pam Darnall, president and CEO of Family & Children’s Place.

Students from PAL and enrolled in FSS come from underserved neighborhoods hit hard by poverty, underemployment, and crime. At Meyzeek, for example, 97 percent of enrolled students qualify for free or reduced lunches and 46 percent of families live at or below the poverty level. The neighborhoods, including Smoketown and Shelby Park, also suffer higher crime, unemployment and high school dropout rates than elsewhere in Jefferson County.

So, while it’s critical to provide tips, training, and resources to aid academics and socialization, it’s a demonstrated fact that hunger affects students’ attention and focus, so food is as critical a tool to learning as books or lessons.

The Yum! Brands Foundation supports charitable organizations that are working to solve hunger locally and around the globe. It also supports organizations that are important to its associates and franchise partners through arts, education, social services and diversity. The latest grants continue a string of support by the foundation for Family & Children’s Place.

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 Family & Children’s Place works to protect Kentuckiana children, families and communities from abuse, neglect and exploitation and, through research-based, trauma-informed services, help them heal. The organization has supported families for more than 127 years and today serves approximately 5,000 children and families annually. For more information about Family and Children’s Place, visit www.famchildplace.org or call 502-893-3900.