- Jaguar Land Rover named Corporate Founding Partner of Children's Health Fund "Healthy and Ready to Learn" initiative
- Jaguar Land Rover awards grant through its global corporate social responsibility platform, established to positively impact 12 million lives around the world by 2020
- One‑year grant will allow Children's Health Fund to pilot new school‑based model that brings educators, healthcare professionals and parents together to identify and remedy every child's health barriers to learning
- South Bronx PS 49 elementary school selected as pilot school
- Partnership to be announced at the Children's Health Fund Annual Benefit on Monday, June 9
(MAHWAH, NJ) ‑ June 9, 2014 ‑ Jaguar Land Rover North America announced today a $500,000, one‑year grant to Children's Health Fund, which has provided high‑quality healthcare to children in America's most economically distressed urban and rural communities for 27 years. Jaguar Land Rover is awarding the grant through the company's global corporate social responsibility platform that funds projects around the world with the collective goal of affecting 12 million people globally by 2020. Jaguar Land Rover's grant to Children's Health Fund will be announced at the organization's annual gala on June 9. The grant will allow Children's Health Fund to pilot its new school‑based model of care and support ‑ a "Healthy and Ready to Learn School" that coordinates the efforts of educators, healthcare professionals and parents to identify and remedy health barriers to learning that can seriously impede a child's ability to perform academically.
Jaguar Land Rover is a Corporate Founding Partner of the Children's Health Fund "Healthy and Ready to Learn" initiative, providing the resources to implement this new model at PS 49, a South Bronx elementary school in the Mott Haven neighborhood. Through intensive coordination with teachers and engagement with parents, the Healthy and Ready to Learn team supported by this grant will screen for and address health barriers to learning including asthma, poor vision, hearing problems, behavioral health issues, dental pain, anemia, lead, and hunger. Research proves that these preventable, treatable, and manageable health issues can undermine a child's early development, learning, and educational achievement.
"Jaguar Land Rover is honored to be Corporate Founding Partner of Children's Health Fund's Healthy and Ready to Learn initiative," said Joe Eberhardt, President & CEO, Jaguar Land Rover North America. "We understand the need to remove those health‑related barriers that prevent children from learning in the classroom and look forward to working alongside Children's Health Fund to enact positive change in the lives of students in need."
"Our mobile clinics already bring health care directly to hundreds of schools across the country," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, President and Co‑Founder of Children's Health Fund, "and we know the impact that health problems can have on a child's success in school. Our Healthy and Ready to Learn initiative brings staff and resources into the school to provide a coordinated and focused approach to make sure that any health problem that stands in the way of learning is immediately addressed. With this critical funding from Jaguar Land Rover, we have a tremendous opportunity to break down the silos between education and health care and work with parents to make sure that every child is healthy and ready to learn at our first pilot school PS 49. The lessons that we learn here will enable us to take this revolutionary new approach to scale across the country."
Over 700 children will immediately benefit from this pilot program with enhanced screening efforts, support for behavioral health issues and curriculum enhancements to promote a healthy learning environment. In addition to supporting the Healthy and Ready to Learn pilot school, the Jaguar Land Rover grant will also fund production of a guide for parents to help them ensure their children have a healthy foundation for success in the classroom and beyond. This guide will benefit nearly 25,000 families.
In partnership with Children's Health Fund, Jaguar Land Rover will also create opportunities for its employees to interact directly with the school community at the pilot school through volunteering opportunities and involvement of the dealerships.
Jaguar Land Rover's corporate social responsibility platform funds projects that support education, environment, humanitarian and health, and nurturing talent with the goal of advancing knowledge and improving lives for 12 million people by 2020. Children's Health Fund is the second North American recipient of Jaguar Land Rover's corporate social responsibility program; in March, Jaguar Land Rover announced a $130,000, one‑year grant to P.S. ARTS, an arts education nonprofit in Southern California, to enhance its programming and further extend its reach to children who would not otherwise have access to the arts in schools.
Founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and pediatrician/child advocate Irwin Redlener, MD, Children's Health Fund provides pediatric mobile medical care to children living in poverty across the country. Transportation barriers often prevent children from getting vital health care so the Children's Health Fund fleet of 50 mobile clinics brings care to them, including at hundreds of schools and pre‑K centers.
# # #
About Jaguar Land Rover
• The United States is one of the leading global markets for both Jaguar and Land Rover
• Jaguar Land Rover employs 25,000 people and sells vehicles in 170 countries around the world
• Jaguar Land Rover has two state of the art engineering and design facilities and three advanced manufacturing plants in the UK
• Headquartered in Mahwah, New Jersey in the United States, Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC has offices across the USA
• Jaguar Land Rover is represented by more than 330 independently operated retail outlets in the USA
Children's Health Fund
Founded in 1987 by singer/songwriter Paul Simon and pediatrician/advocate Irwin Redlener, M.D., Children's Health Fund is the nation's leading pediatric provider of mobile‑based health care for homeless and low‑income children and their families. Its mission is to bring health care directly to those in need through the development and support of innovative medical programs, response to public health crises, and the promotion of guaranteed access to health care for all children. Children's Health Fund has a fleet of 50 mobile medical, dental and mental health clinics serving hundreds of locations in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Over the past 27 years, the organization has treated over 350,000 disadvantaged children providing almost 3.3 million health care visits, often in places where doctors and health care providers are in short supply. For more information about CHF, visit www.childrenshealthfund.org.