Highmark Foundation now accepting applications for 2024-2025 school grants program

Jan. 29, 2024 | PITTSBURGH

PITTSBURGH (Jan. 29, 2024) — The Highmark Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2024-2025 School Grants Program, which will make available up to $500,000 for school grades K-12 in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The goal of this ongoing program is to create healthier school environments that result in positive, sustainable, and lasting change through comprehensive strategies.

"This multifaceted program equips schools with resources that develop healthier and safer school environments," said Highmark Foundation President Yvonne Cook. "The Highmark Foundation recognizes the value of early intervention and preventive health programs and appreciates the vital role schools play to promote students' health, safety, education, and well-being."

Public, private, parochial, charter schools, and vocational high schools throughout West Virginia and Pennsylvania are invited to apply for the following offerings of the Highmark Foundation's School Grants Program:

Physical Health

Schools are an important contributor to physical health, not only because they are where students spend majority of their days, but they are also the setting for health education, physical education, and breakfast and lunch meals. All of these contribute to strong physical health and help individuals develop lifelong healthy habits.

Highmark Foundation will provide grants up to $7,500 for programmatic activities including (but not limited to):

• Increasing physical activity
• Healthy eating and nutrition education
• Improving personal hygiene habits
• Health promotion and disease prevention education

School-Based Health

Numerous studies have linked school-based health care to educational and health-related outcomes. Schools can contribute to increased use of vaccination and preventive services, reduced asthma morbidity, fewer emergency department visits and hospital admissions, and lower illegal substance use and alcohol consumption.

Social Health

Recognizing that social health factors are an important part of a person's overall health, programs under this category seek to connect students and families to the services and supports they need outside of the school community to be healthy. Highmark Foundation will provide grants up to $7,500 for programmatic activities including (but not limited to):

• Food security initiatives
• Social-emotional learning and school connectedness programs
• Housing and homelessness interventions

Entering its twelfth year, the Highmark Foundation's School Grants Program has provided more than $4.2 million to help bring about healthy changes in schools in Highmark Foundation's service region.

The link to the online application can be found at https://highmarkfoundationrfp.versaic.com.

About About Highmark Foundation

The Highmark Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) private, charitable organization dedicated to improving the health, wellbeing, and quality of life for individuals who reside in the communities served by Highmark, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates. We fulfill our missing by awarding high-impact grants to charitable organizations that implement evidence-based programs aimed at improving community health. Central to the Foundation's mission is identifying and continuously reevaluating our region's prevailing health care needs. By doing so, the Foundation remains at the forefront of those needs, well-equipped to pinpoint the issues that more urgently need support.

In 2021, two new restricted funds were established at the Highmark Foundation — the Highmark West Virginia Charitable Fund for Health and the United Concordia Dental Charitable Fund. These funds support the ongoing work of the Highmark Foundation across its footprint and beyond.

For more information, visit www.highmarkfoundation.org and follow the Highmark Foundation on LinkedIn.

Contact:

Bethany Ross
Highmark Health
304-347-7698
Bethany.ross@highmarkhealth.org