UL Research Center Receives $400,000 as part of $1 Million Donation for Children’s Health Studies
LAFAYETTE, La. – With child obesity on the rise, a UL research center hopes to positively impact children’s health on a statewide level. A recent donation from a frequent center donor may make that quest possible.
UL Lafayette President Dr. E. Joseph Savoie and family of the late Cecil J. Picard recently joined staff of the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning to witness a $400,000 check presentation from the Special Children’s Foundation.
Presenting the Picard Center with its donation, Sharon Holder, President of the Special Children’s Foundation, said, “The Foundation is absolutely delighted to be a part of the Cecil Picard Center and support its efforts to better the lives of Louisiana’s children, especially in the arena of health care.”
The funds donated by the Special Children’s Foundation have helped the Picard Center bring in more than $34 million to UL Lafayette since 2005. “When I think about the Special Children’s Foundation, I think of the immense progress the Center has made a result of the funds donated by the Foundation,” said Dr. Billy R. Stokes, Executive Director of the Picard Center. “We cannot thank the Special Children’s Foundation enough for its continued philanthropy and support of our center’s mission. This donation will have a tremendous impact on the health and fitness levels of Louisiana’s children.”
The donation is the last installment of a $1 million contribution from the Special Children’s Foundation to the research center. The funds will help the Picard Center implement individualized physical fitness reports in pilot schools throughout the state. The reports, called Fitnessgrams, compare student measures to health standards established by the National Center for Disease Control.
Senate Bill 309, authored by Senator Cheryl Gray-Evans, provides for physical fitness assessments in schools. Connecting to the Picard Center’s work around Coordinated School Health, this bill targets the expansion of the work in 12 pilot parishes with the goal of statewide implementation of the Fitnessgram. Working in concert with the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Hospitals, the Picard Center will collect the data and report back information relative to the physical fitness of students by race, age and gender. Collaborative efforts with the Obesity Council will result in the identification of best practices for overall health of students and effective interventions to address identified needs of underweight children, overweight children and children identified as obese.
The Picard Center, named in honor of former State Superintendent of Education Cecil J. Picard, is dedicated to providing high-quality research and strategic evaluations of programs that address learning from birth through adulthood and investigates ways to bring scientifically-based research to bear on public policy in all areas of child education, health and well-being. The Center awaits the development of its new 22,000 square-foot building, to be built within two years at a cost of approximately $7.2 million in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Research Park.