Save the Children's CEO Charles MacCormack announces a new grant from the PepsiCo Foundation. February 19, 2009

WESTPORT, Conn. (Feb. 19, 2009) — Save the Children today announced it will receive a three-year, $5 million grant from the PepsiCo Foundation to help ensure the survival and well-being of children living in rural India and Bangladesh, which together are home to 40 percent of the world's malnourished children.

With support from the PepsiCo Foundation, Save the Children will work towards decreasing newborn and child mortality and child malnutrition in these countries.  Save the Children proposes to work with community health educators to provide thousands of families, who are among these countries' poorest, with important information about health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene.  The combined global resources of PepsiCo Foundation and Save the Children will help make a profound difference in the lives of 650,000 children under the age of five, along with mothers and pregnant and lactating women in these two countries.

"One of the goals of the PepsiCo Foundation is to address the fundamental need for all people to have access to proper nutrition," said Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo and chairman of PepsiCo Foundation. "With this new project, we seek to introduce and encourage healthy practices among mothers and young children that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives."

"It takes more than food to fight malnutrition," said Charles MacCormack, president and CEO of Save the Children. "Protecting vulnerable children requires a comprehensive effort — one that includes the public, private and humanitarian sectors — to address the short- and long-term causes of hunger and poverty.  PepsiCo Foundation's support of Save the Children's work in India and Bangladesh will help expand critical social protection, basic nutrition and safety net programs that, in turn, will help children there survive and thrive."

In India, Save the Children will work through community health groups to decrease newborn and child mortality and malnutrition by increasing use of health services, improving nutrition and hygiene practices and expanding access to safe water and latrines.

In Bangladesh, local health workers will expand treatment of the most common causes of mortality among children, treat severe malnutrition with ready-to-use food and improve hygiene and sanitation practices.  Save the Children also will train families to generate income from local resources, enabling them to provide their children with a more diverse diet.

This grant builds on PepsiCo Foundation's commitments of more than $4 million for environmental and health programs in India and Bangladesh in 2008.  It is consistent with PepsiCo Foundation's vision of creating a better tomorrow for the global community and in advancing the Millennium Development Goals, which include improving hunger, malnutrition and health conditions in the developing world by the year 2015.

Since 1997, PepsiCo's employees have provided funds to Save the Children through their employee matching gift programs.  The PepsiCo Foundation had previously supported Save the Children's response to a hunger emergency  in West Africa (2006) and emergency relief in Pakistan following an earthquake (2005).

About the PepsiCo Foundation

Established in 1962, PepsiCo Foundation is the philanthropic anchor of PepsiCo, responsible for providing charitable contributions to eligible non-profit organizations. The Foundation is committed to developing sustainable partnerships and programs in underserved regions that provide opportunities for improved health, environment and inclusion. For more information visit:  http://www.pepsico.com/Purpose/PepsiCo-Foundation.aspx.

About PepsiCo

PepsiCo is one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, with 2008 annual revenues of more than $43 billion. The company employs approximately 198,000 people worldwide, and its products are sold in approximately 200 countries. Its principal businesses include: Frito-Lay snacks, Pepsi-Cola beverages, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana juices and Quaker foods. For more information, please visit www.pepsico.com.

Save the Children is the leading, independent organization creating lasting change for children in need in the United States and around the world. For more than 75 years, Save the Children has been helping children survive and thrive by improving their health, education and economic opportunities and, in times of acute crisis, mobilizing lifesaving assistance to help children recover from the effects of war, conflict and natural disasters. For more information, visit: www.savethechildren.org