Children's Trust Foundation Endowment For Families Exceeds Goal Of $1 Million

SEATTLE -- Children's Trust Foundation's endowment for families has exceeded $1 million with a $500,000 gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Children's Trust Foundation is the only private organization in Washington State dedicated exclusively to funding programs that strengthen families in order to prevent child abuse and neglect.

"It shouldn't hurt to be a child or a parent," Endowment Chair Sibby DeForest said. "This most generous gift from Bill and Melinda Gates validates the need to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing all families with the support they require to be healthy, productive and self-sufficient."

Honorary Chair Pam Schell helped kick-off the Children's Trust Endowment campaign in April. Other gifts to the endowment since the kick-off have totaled more than $200,000.

Earnings from the Children's Trust Foundation endowment are dedicated to innovative parent education and support programs located in family support centers statewide. In the past three years, the endowment has provided funds to seventeen such programs in family centers stretching from Battleground in Clark County to Port Angeles. Three new programs were selected in November for funding in the year 2000, located in Nooksack, Key Peninsula, and Darrington.

Children's Trust Foundation was founded in 1987 with the mission of preventing child abuse and neglect by strengthening families and ensuring the healthy development of children. The endowment was started in 1992 with a $100,000 challenge grant from the Duff and Dorothy Kennedy Foundation.

For more information, call the Children's Trust Foundation at 206-343-5911 or visit them online at www.childrenstrust.org.