New Orleans, La. – More than 50 nonprofit groups have been awarded $1.2 million in grants from the Entergy Charitable Foundation in the second of three planned award cycles for 2012.

“Grants from the Entergy Charitable Foundation are shareholder funded and help organizations within our service territories continue the good work they do in their local communities,” explained Patty Riddlebarger, director, corporate social responsibility, Entergy Corporation. “We award qualified organizations grants in three cycles annually and encourage organizations to apply for the ECF grants.”

Among the awards this cycle is a $460,000 grant to New Schools for Baton Rouge, an incubator of up to 25 new charter schools. Working within North Baton Rouge''s newly created Achievement Zone, where 65 percent of students are currently performing below grade-level, NSBR hopes to improve student achievement through use of scale proven educator talent pipelines and investment in education support organizations.

Posse New Orleans received a $50,000 award. Posse identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. The organization places these students in supportive, multicultural teams--Posses--of 10 students. Posse partner colleges and universities award Posse Scholars four-year, full-tuition leadership scholarships. With the support and resources Posse provides, scholars graduate at an unprecedented 90 percent rate.

The Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadianareceived $125,000 in grants to support summer and school-year children’s feeding programs. The Summer Feeding program provides free breakfast and lunch to low-income children during the summer in Jefferson and surrounding parishes. Second Harvest expects to provide a total of 240,000 meals and serve approximately 3,000 children at more than 50 sites in 2012, nearly double the success of the programs in 2011. The school-year program, Kids Cafe, delivers hot, nutritious dinner meals daily to children at afterschool programs in the highest-need areas of south Louisiana. Second Harvest will expand Kids Cafe to serve up to 12 sites at an average of 1,200 children per day and provide more than 200,000 meals through the school year.

The University of Mississippi Foundation received a $100,000 grant in support of the Mississippi Building Blocks program, designed to enhance the quality of early care and education provided to young children. Mentors are provided for 20 consecutive days to assist teachers working in the infant and toddler classrooms of participating centers and improve teaching strategies. Age-appropriate education materials and resources are also provided. Teachers receive scholarships to obtain their Child Development Associate Certificate and receive stipends upon completion.

The Entergy Charitable Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation wholly funded by Entergy Corporation shareholders. The goal of the foundation is to support initiatives that help create and sustain thriving communities. ECF has a special focus on low-income initiatives as well as educational and literacy programs and efforts to protect the environment. The foundation accepts applications three times per year. For more information or to access an application form from the Entergy Charitable Foundation, look under “Our Community/Corporate and Foundation Giving” at www.entergy.com.

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation’s leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and approximately 15,000 employees.

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