FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tilly Gambill,

Network Expansion & Communications Coordinator

Docs For Tots

Phone: 202-222-0569 ext. 3117, E-mail: tgambill@docsfortots.org

www.docsfortots.org

2/1/2006

Child advocacy organization, Docs For Tots, receives grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Gift supports a nationwide network of doctors advocating for young children, through Docs For Tots.

Washington D.C. - Docs For Tots (DFT), a nationwide network of doctors advocating for young children, announced today a $50,000 investment from The W.K. Kellogg Foundation. 

Polling data indicates, and DFT’s experience shows, that physicians are particularly effective messengers for child advocacy issues.  Time and opportunity can serve as discouraging factors in the amount of advocacy work doctors are able to perform.  Docs For Tots addresses these issues by providing resources, training and technical support to aid doctors in acquiring information quickly on major advocacy issues.  Brokering relationships with other advocacy organizations, in order to connect doctors with local opportunities, is another important role DFT plays in supporting the work of doctors. 

Dr. George Askew, Executive Director of DFT and a recent Ashoka Fellow, stated, “the support of The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been encouraging from the inception of Docs For Tots, and this generous grant will help increase the network of doctors within the organization, allowing Docs For Tots to provide more advocacy opportunities and resources.”

The foundation gift will help Docs For Tots pursue its vision of changing the nature of professionalism for children’s doctors and increasing their interest in the pursuit of social justice in health and development for young children. 

________________________________________________________

Doc For Tots is a nonpartisan, advocacy organization formed to encourage more doctors to fulfill their important role as active advocates for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers on the national, state and local level.  Established in 2003, the organization serves doctors nationwide, by providing resources and advocacy opportunities to make it as simple as possible for doctors to become involved in advocacy or to increase their advocacy activity.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive, and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities.

To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include: health; food systems and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.