Perdue Farms, through its Franklin P. and Arthur W. Perdue Foundation, has awarded a $10,000 grant to Boys and Girls Club Skagit County in Mount Vernon, Wash. to help continue funding for its Healthy Lifestyles & Healthy Habits program. The donation is part of Perdue’s “Delivering Hope to Our Neighbors” initiative focused on improving quality of life and building strong communities.
Perdue Farms is the parent company of Draper Valley Farms in Mount Vernon, home to local brands DRAPER VALLEY FARMS, ROXY The Organic Chicken and RANGER The Free Range Chicken.
Emphasizing academic success, healthy lifestyles, character and leadership, the mission of Boys and Girls Club Skagit County, Wash., is to help young people reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens.
“Our Healthy Lifestyles & Healthy Habits program is geared toward reaching youth in our clubs with engaging and fun instruction on how to live healthy,” said Ian Faley, Boys and Girls Club Skagit County executive vice president and CDO. “This includes consideration of individual choice and the development of habits, including growing food and cooking. Our highly trained staff brings age-appropriate material to teach and mentor our youth.”
The Healthy Lifestyles & Healthy Habits program stresses the importance of healthful eating, maintaining a balanced diet, practicing self-control in choices and decisions and the importance of pursuing and maintaining positive habits.
“For many of our participants, this program provides their main instruction in nutrition and healthy habits,” Faley said. “As our youth primarily come from low- to mid- socioeconomic backgrounds, where they are from either single-parent or two-parent-working households, many of the opportunities provided through the clubs go beyond what they could enjoy outside of our doors. As such, we strive to provide the very best experiences we can.”
Kim Nechay, executive director of the Perdue Foundation, said the programs of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Skagit County “do so much in this community. This program helps educate kids on healthy lifestyles and diets. The kids of today’s world need all the reinforcement of these topics that they can get. We are so happy to be able to support the efforts of the Boys and Girls Club.”
