Bayer USA Foundation Awards $300,000 Grant to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Aug. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to further support the health and wellbeing of the greater Triangle community, Bayer CropScience has announced a three-year, $300,000 grant from The Bayer USA Foundation to the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina. The grant will sustain seven Weekend Power Pack programs during this time.

Bayer is the founding partner of the Food Bank's Weekend Power Pack Program, which ensures that children who are eligible for free and reduced school meals have adequate, nutritious food for the weekend. By the third year of The Bayer USA Foundation's support, the seven Triangle-area Weekend Power Pack programs will be able to serve nearly 900 children per year. The more than 2,300 Weekend Power Packs provided during the three year grant period will be loaded with nearly 14,000 individual meals. With 92 percent of the children sharing their Power Pack meals with family members in need, the total impact of the grant is close to 500,000 meals to fight childhood and household hunger.

"At Bayer CropScience, we are dedicated to leaving a better world, and hope to work toward this goal through our partnership with the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina and its Weekend Power Pack program," said Inci Dannenberg, vice president of commercial operations for Bayer CropScience LP and board of directors member at the Food Bank. "The program targets children who, without this help, might not have any food during the weekend until school on Monday. We believe the Food Bank and this program are invaluable assets to our community, and we look forward to helping them grow through this grant and our ongoing relationship."

To further display support for the Food Bank, nearly 30 Bayer executives and Bayer CropScience volunteers attended an event announcing the donation and packed the Weekend Power Packs for distribution. Bayer CropScience also donated items for the pack to promote a lifelong love of science learning in children, including materials to support Bayer's award-winning Making Science Make Sense program.

"We are grateful to The Bayer USA Foundation for this grant and their continued support," said Peter Werbicki, president and CEO of the Food Bank. "Last year, we were able to serve more than 412,000 meals to 2,240 children throughout our 34-county service area. The generosity of Bayer CropScience helps make this possible, and ensures that our Weekend Power Pack program will continue to thrive and that no child goes hungry."

In the 34 counties served by the Food Bank, more than 560,000 people are at risk of hunger due to poverty, unemployment, underemployment, major illness or change in marital status. Nearly 200,000 are children, and that number increases to 300,000 when school cafeterias close for summer break.

The impact of The Bayer USA Foundation grant and Bayer CropScience's support is even greater than individual children served, as surveys show children receiving Weekend Power Packs tend to share them with an average of 2.3 family members. This means the overall number of people served through the program includes more than 5,000 Triangle-area children and families.

For more information on Bayer CropScience's community commitment, visit http://bayercropscience.us/our-commitment.

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About Bayer CropScience
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer CropScience, the subgroup of Bayer AG responsible for the agricultural business, has annual sales of EUR 8,819 million (2013) and is one of the world's leading innovative crop science companies in the areas of seeds, crop protection and non-agricultural pest control. The company offers an outstanding range of products including high value seeds, innovative crop protection solutions based on chemical and biological modes of action as well as an extensive service backup for modern, sustainable agriculture. In the area of non-agricultural applications, Bayer CropScience has a broad portfolio of products and services to control pests from home and garden to forestry applications. The company has a global workforce of 22,400 and is represented in more than 120 countries. This and further news is available at: www.press.bayercropscience.com.

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Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer's public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

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SOURCE Bayer CropScience