WellPoint Named Workplace Giving Partner of the Year by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
<0> WellPointScott Larrivee, 262-523-4746Twitter: and </0>
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital honored WellPoint, Inc. with its Workplace Giving Partner of the Year award at the hospital’s Volunteer Appreciation Awards dinner recently at the Memphis Cook Convention Center in Tennessee. The annual event recognizes St. Jude partners, volunteers and donors from across the country.
“We’re both thrilled and humbled by this honor,” said Lance Chrisman, executive director of the WellPoint Foundation. “St. Jude does remarkable work and we are pleased to support their caring efforts which help so many.”
WellPoint was recognized for its ongoing charitable support for St. Jude. Through the company’s annual Associate Giving Campaign, WellPoint associates, backed by a 50 percent match from the WellPoint Foundation, have achieved the Hope category of giving by pledging a cumulative total of more than $3 million to support the hospital’s life changing work.
“Thanks to the generosity of corporate partners like WellPoint, no family ever pays St. Jude for anything,” said Richard Shadyac Jr., CEO of ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “Care, housing, transportation, meals – the list of services we provide to our families is unequaled and would not be possible without the unwavering support of WellPoint, its corporate foundation and associates. We are grateful to WellPoint’s leadership and associates who have embraced the St. Jude mission of finding cures and saving children.”
The ALSAC/St. Jude Volunteer Appreciation Awards recognize a wide range of St. Jude supporters – from partners to volunteer groups to individual donors. Each year, more than 5 million donors and more than 1 million volunteers and partners support the lifesaving mission of St. Jude.
At WellPoint, we believe there is an important connection between our members’ health and well-being—and the value we bring our customers and shareholders. So each day we work to improve the health of our members and their communities. And, we can make a real difference since we have approximately 34 million people in our branded health plans, and approximately 65 million people served through our subsidiaries. As an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, WellPoint serves members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 10 New York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as the Blue Cross or Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in selected upstate counties only), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.), and Wisconsin. In a majority of these service areas, WellPoint’s plans do business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Empire Blue Cross (in the New York service areas). WellPoint also serves customers across the country through our UniCare subsidiary and in certain California, Arizona and Nevada markets through our CareMore subsidiary. Our 1-800 CONTACTS, Inc. subsidiary offers customers online sales of contact lenses, eyeglasses and other ocular products. Additional information about WellPoint is available at .
The WellPoint Foundation is the philanthropic arm of WellPoint, Inc. and through charitable contributions and programs, the Foundation promotes the inherent commitment of WellPoint, Inc. to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and families in communities that WellPoint, Inc. and its affiliated health plans serve. The Foundation focuses its funding on strategic initiatives that address and provide innovative solutions to health care challenges, as well as promoting the Healthy Generations Program, a multi-generational initiative that targets specific disease states and medical conditions. These disease states and medical conditions include: prenatal care in the first trimester, low birth weight babies, cardiac morbidity rates, long term activities that decrease obesity and increase physical activity, diabetes prevalence in adult populations, adult pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations and smoking cessation. The Foundation also coordinates the company’s annual associate giving campaign and provides a 50 percent match of associates’ campaign pledges. To learn more about the WellPoint Foundation, please visit .
Since opening 50 years ago, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has changed the way the world treats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. No family ever pays St. Jude for the care their child receives and, for every child treated here, thousands more have been saved worldwide through St. Jude discoveries. The hospital has played a pivotal role in pushing U.S. pediatric cancer survival rates from 20 to 80 percent overall, and is the first and only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. It is also a leader in the research and treatment of blood disorders and infectious diseases in children. St. Jude was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas, who believed that no child should die in the dawn of life. Join that mission by visiting or following us on and .