america healing

our mission in america healing

As we launch the America Healing initiative, our mission is to support programs that promote racial healing and address racial inequity. Children of color are over-represented among the 29 million low-income children and families in this country, particularly among families living in areas of concentrated poverty.

They are less likely to attend high- quality schools, live healthy lives, and eat nutritious food. The goal of this unprecedented effort is to ensure that all children in America have an equitable and promising future.

“The mission of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is to help communities create conditions that propel vulnerable children to success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.”

our focus

A five-year, $75 million initiative, America Healing will focus on bringing healing to divided communities and bridging racial gaps in the areas of education, health, juvenile justice, economic success, the media, and other areas. The new initiative will focus on issues at the core of structural racism—those policies and practices that continue to create barriers for children of color—while remaining aligned with the foundation’s primary program areas of Education and Learning; Food, Health and Well-being; and Family Economic Security.

“Our goal is to breathe life back into the effort to abolish structural racism, and to help America achieve strength and prosperity through racial equity.”

- Sterling K. Speirn,
president and CEO,
W.K. Kellogg Foundation

america healing grantees

During the first phase of America Healing, 119 organizations are receiving grants totaling more than $14.6 million to support community-based healing efforts among racial and ethnic groups. The grantees represent 29 states and the District of Columbia and all racial and ethnic population groups.  They include:

• People’s Grocery, a community organization building a local food system in West Oakland, Calif., will use the America Healing grant to support the new Community Hands program, which recruits local “ambassadors” to organize healthy food demonstrations and communicate the needs of the local residents.
• The Foundation for the Mid-South, which works to improve the quality of life for people in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, will involve residents of 30 small towns in promoting citizens’ health, especially related to obesity and related diseases. The project, Reducing Health Disparities in Small Southern Towns, will reach out to those not involved in making decisions and who don’t have access to the resources that support a healthy lifestyle.
• The Little Black Pearl Art and Design Center, a Chicago-based non-profit arts organization serving neighborhoods on the South Side, will focus America Healing funds on its “Collateral Damage: Creating Legacies of Boundless Peace” project. Participants, including Chicago Public School students, will explore the lives of young people lost because of gun violence in the city and learn research skills with which to document the issues of violence and discrimination in their communities.
• Lifelink’s Beyond Cultural “Competency” project is an effort to develop culturally appropriate approaches to serving the mental and behavioral health needs of the Native American youth and families in McKinley County, New Mexico. The initiative is a response to a 2008 research report indicating that many young people and their families are not receiving the help they need because of their mistrust of western behavioral health services and providers.