Atlanta nonprofits receive grant funding from the Aetna Foundation to encourage healthy eating and active living

This fall, two Atlanta-based nonprofits, Captain Planet Foundation and the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential, were awarded a total of $100,000 from the Aetna Foundation to help fund their programs encouraging healthy eating and active living.

The funding will help support Captain Planet Foundation’s Project Learning Garden, which provides schools with strategies for building garden-based learning programs, including hands-on training for teachers, curriculum, lesson kits, supplies, a schoolyard garden, fully-equipped garden cooking cart and summer garden management. The program teaches young students how to plant, grow, harvest and cook fruits and vegetables throughout the school year.

The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential works to improve the overall health and well-being of young people in Georgia by giving them the knowledge, skills and motivation they need to make good, healthy choices.

This grant comes at a critical time when, according to Feeding America, 49 million Americans, including 15.8 million children, live in food insecure households and only 1 in 10 children eat enough vegetables (CDC).

The Aetna Foundation has awarded more than $3 million in community grants to 75 nonprofit organizations in 22 states to help healthy food choices and active living take root in underserved communities. Grant programs will increase access to fresh foods, create opportunities for nutrition education and promote exercise in local neighborhoods. This funding comes at a critical time when there is a great need to make healthy foods more available, accessible and affordable at the local level – community by community, block by block.