Entergy Charitable Foundation Grants Total $4.5 Million for 2010

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 14, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The Entergy Charitable Foundation today awarded $1.8 million in grants to 52 nonprofit organizations, including a large gift to a group focused on rebuilding New Orleans homes, another to help low-income working families build wealth and a third to improve early childhood education in Mississippi.

The latest round of grants brings to $4.5 million the amount the Entergy Corporation shareholder-funded foundation donated in 2010 to nonprofit groups in the eight states where Entergy companies do business.

The largest single grant was $350,000 to the St. Bernard Project to help fund the group's work rebuilding affordable housing in the New Orleans area. The grant will be used as part of the group's Opportunity Housing program to renovate abandoned or blighted properties and convert them into properties for sale or for rent. The St. Bernard Project will use both volunteers and workers from its Good Work, Good Pay training program to complete work on an estimated 30 homes in the next year. The Good Work, Good Pay program hires returning military veterans and the unemployed at union-level wages to work on the group's projects.

This latest grant brings to $918,975 the amount Entergy has given the St. Bernard Project over the last three years.  

The next largest grant was $200,000 to the United Way of Greater New Orleans to help fund a program that matches the savings of working poor families. The New Orleans program allows participants to use the matched savings to buy a home, purchase a car or start a new child care business, all of which the agency sees as primary needs among the city's low-income residents.

A $125,000 grant went to the University of Mississippi for the Mississippi Building Blocks program to better prepare children for school. It is the largest of 30 grants totaling approximately $800,000 earmarked for education in the latest round of grants.

Among the education-oriented grants was a $100,000 donation to New Schools for New Orleans, Inc. to help the group support public charter schools in the city. The school group helps develop public charter schools, recruits teachers and trains charter school board members.

Another $100,000 grant was given to City Year Louisiana's Diplomas Now! Program in New Orleans to help keep students in school and on track to graduate.

In addition, more than $200,000 in grants will go to various education and training programs to prepare students for jobs in the energy industry.

Entergy also gave a total of $300,000 to the Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas chapters of The Nature Conservancy. In Louisiana, the group will use its $100,000 in grants to support projects to protect freshwater in the state, including assessing the condition of the state's drainage basins and freshwater resources. The Texas grant will help buy conservation easements in the Big Thicket region of southeast Texas for the Clear Fork Bog and Dogwood Interpretive Trail projects. The Arkansas grant will be used to help restore a section of the Cache River system basin.

The Arc of Greater New Orleans, Inc. received a $75,000 grant for a program that trains workers in the construction trades, emphasizing environmentally responsible ways to demolish buildings and recycle materials. The group also provides free or low-cost demolition work in an effort to rid the city of tens of thousands of blighted properties.

The Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans, Inc. received a grant for nearly $95,000 to help pay for its strategic planning process to expand services to elderly, children and families. The VOA has received $640,800 from Entergy's foundation over the last five years.

The Entergy Charitable Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation wholly funded by Entergy Corporation. The goal of the foundation is to support initiatives that help create and sustain thriving communities. The ECF has a special focus on low-income initiatives as well as educational and literacy programs and efforts to protect the environment. The ECF accepts applications three times per year. For more information or to access an application form from the Entergy Charitable Foundation, look under "Our Community/Corporate and Foundation Giving" at www.entergy.com.

Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $10 billion and more than 15,000 employees.

For more information about Entergy, visit entergy.com

SOURCE Entergy Corporation