Georgia Campaign For Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Receives Major Grant From Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

ATLANTA -- The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP) announced today that it will receive $750,000 in funding over the next three years from Bill and Melinda Gates. The money will be used to support G-CAPP's ongoing work to reduce the rate of adolescent pregnancy in Georgia through partnering with existing groups, conducting research to provide the best possible strategies to prevent adolescent pregnancies, and assisting in providing sources of funding for community groups to use. The grant will support pilot programs that are currently under way in Gainesville, the Garden Homes area of Savannah, and the Thomasville Heights area near downtown Atlanta.

"We're extremely grateful to Bill and Melinda Gates for this generous gift and for recognizing the critical importance of ensuring that all children have access to a safe and healthy adolescence characterized by hope, respect, and the opportunity for a productive future free of early pregnancy and parenthood," said Jane Fonda, G-CAPP founder and chairman of the board.

"We're convinced that G-CAPP's strategies to put model programs in place at the community level and to evaluate and disseminate 'best practices' information from these efforts and other programs throughout our country are highly effective tools to address the issue of adolescent pregnancy. This contribution gives a significant boost to the fund-raising efforts we are pursuing nationwide on behalf of G-CAPP," Fonda added.

The grant from the William H. Gates Foundation marks the first major contribution to G-CAPP in addition to support received from the Turner Foundation, which provided start-up funds for G-CAPP in 1995 and has been the source of most funding for ongoing operations in subsequent years.

"We are pleased to support the Turner Foundation and the grass-roots G-CAPP program in their collaborative efforts with many different community organizations and individuals to support adolescents and their parents in preventing teen pregnancies," said Bill Gates Sr., director of the William H. Gates Foundation.

The grant from the Gates Foundation covers the period July 1, 1999, through June 30, 2002.

G-CAPP is a nonprofit organization that works with organizations statewide in support of programs for young people and adults aimed at removing Georgia from the top 10 U.S. states in the number of adolescent births. G-CAPP's mission is to help ensure that Georgia's young people have the opportunities, skills, and support needed to avoid early pregnancies. The organization also works to develop programs that can serve as replicable models for local communities to adopt in addressing the problem of adolescent pregnancy.