WellPoint Foundation-Boys & Girls Clubs of America Recognized as “Best Partnership” by Business Civic Leadership Center

INDIANAPOLIS & ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WellPoint Foundation and Boys & Girls Club of America (BGCA) have received the “Best Partnership" Corporate Citizenship Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC). The award recognizes the work WellPoint Foundation and BGCA are doing through the Triple Play program to engage America’s youth in healthy, active lifestyles and provide them with the decision-making skills needed for a lifetime of good health.

“Triple Play has become one of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s most popular programs, thanks in large part to the tremendous support and commitment of the WellPoint Foundation”

More than 13,000 votes were cast by the public on the BCLC’s website to determine the winner of the award.

“WellPoint and the WellPoint Foundation are working to address some of our nation’s biggest health challenges, including the risks posed by sedentary lifestyles and childhood obesity,” said John Cannon, interim president and chief executive officer of WellPoint. “We’re proud to work with Boys & Girls Clubs of America – an organization that shares our commitment to health improvement – and I would like to thank everyone who voted to recognize the tremendous work of the Triple Play program with this prestigious award.”

Triple Play, a game plan for the mind, body and soul, is BGCA’s proven health and wellness program. It was created in 2005 to encourage Club members to eat healthier (mind), become more physically active (body) and increase their ability to engage in healthy relationships (soul). To date, more than one million young people have participated in the program.

In January 2011, the WellPoint Foundation announced a three-year, $5 million grant to BGCA to strengthen and expand Triple Play at Clubs across the country. Since that time, the organizations have worked together to engage youth and their family members in fun, health-improving activities and programming.

“Triple Play has become one of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s most popular programs, thanks in large part to the tremendous support and commitment of the WellPoint Foundation,” said Jim Clark, president and chief executive officer of BGCA. “By getting more youth and families involved in Triple Play, we’re seeing marked improvements in healthy habits and physical activity. But it doesn’t end there. BGCA and the WellPoint Foundation are putting kids on the path to greater futures – futures that include holistic health and wellness.”

Major accomplishments of the WellPoint Foundation-BGCA grant include: providing 364 Triple Play startup and expansion grants to local Clubs; breaking the Guinness World Record for most people doing “Star Jumps” (a.k.a. jumping jacks) at the same time for two consecutive minutes; holding the Triple Play Summer Games in Atlanta with Olympians Dominique Dawes, Gail Devers, Evander Holyfield and Jackie Joyner-Kersee; conducting a National Leadership Summit on childhood obesity for Boys & Girls Club youth and staff in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and engaging families in the Triple Play Fit Family Challenge, a fitness and nutrition competition.

In addition to the BCLC award, Triple Play was named “a Program that Works” by the Promising Practices Network (PPN) website in fall 2011. PPN offers research-based information to validate the effectiveness of programs that serve children and families, and is often referred to as a “model program” or "best practices" site. The website is run by the RAND Corporation, a national think tank comprised of more than 150 researchers and consultants who specialize in child health, juvenile justice, education, child care, labor and demographics.

Additional information about the WellPoint Foundation and Boys & Girls Clubs of America work to improve youth health can be found on the WellPoint Foundation’s Tumblr blog page at http://wellpointfoundation.tumblr.com and on BGCA’s website at www.bgca.org.

About WellPoint Foundation

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 www.wellpointfoundation.org.

About WellPoint, Inc.

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 www.wellpoint.com.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America

For more than 100 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (GreatFutures.org) has enabled young people most in need to achieve great futures as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Today, nearly 4,000 Clubs serve some 4 million young people through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs are located in cities, towns, public housing and on Native American lands throughout the country, and serve military families in BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. They provide a safe place, caring adult mentors, fun and friendship, and high-impact youth development programs on a daily basis during critical non-school hours. Club programs promote academic success, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. In a Harris Survey of alumni, 57 percent said the Club saved their lives. National headquarters are located in Atlanta. Learn more at http://bgca.org/facebook and http://bgca.org/twitter.

About Triple Play

Triple Play: A Game Plan for the Mind, Body and Soul was launched in 2005 by Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services with support from The Coca-Cola Company to get kids to eat healthier, become more physically active and increase their ability to engage in healthy relationships. A two-year study of more than 2,000 children ages 9-14 showed that Triple Play succeeded in getting them to exercise more, eat healthier foods and feel better about themselves. The study found that Triple Play kids increased to 90 percent of the federally recommended amount of daily exercise, which is 60 minutes a day for children, while their peers outside the program decreased to 78 percent. To date, Triple Play has helped more than one million kids learn the importance of physical activity and proper nutrition. In 2011, the WellPoint Foundation joined BGCA and Coca-Cola as a Triple Play sponsor. Learn more about the program at www.bgca.org/tripleplay.