Investment in community engagement supports the Flint community and its effort to improve children’s health amid water crisis

As announced today in a joint release, during the next year, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation plans to invest up to $5 million in Flint to improve children’s education, health and well-being, backed by significant investments in community engagement to improve early learning and development, access to good food and promoting racial equity.

The Kellogg Foundation believes strengthening community engagement and addressing the adversity of poverty and disinvestment in community are the most enduring interventions to ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to thrive. Michigan is our home state where we support many of our priorities. It is our unequivocal belief that partnership and collaboration—working alongside partners, collaborating with our peer funders and elevating community voice—will pave the way for a brighter future for Flint’s children.

And like most of the world, we remain deeply disturbed by the state of emergency in our own backyard of Flint, Michigan – where lead-contaminated water has caused a public health emergency sure to adversely affect the city’s residents, particularly children and families of color, for years to come. This crisis has shown we can never be complacent in prioritizing the well-being of children.

As city residents continue to reel from the effects of the lead contamination and the city’s leadership works towards its recovery, we stand with Flint, the C.S. Mott Foundation and our partners in helping ensure there is safe drinking water, responsive health care, quality early education and an economically thriving city.