Foundation Overview
Welcome to the website for the Sara Lee Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Sara Lee Corporation.
The Sara Lee Foundation was founded in 1981 to formalize Sara Lee’s dedication to community service. Since then, the Foundation has grown, touching millions of lives, helping those in need, and fostering diverse artistic expression.
Giving - cash contributions, product donations and volunteerism - is an important part of the culture at Sara Lee. The Sara Lee Foundation concentrates its philanthropic support on nonprofit organizations and causes in greater metropolitan Chicago, site of Sara Lee’s corporate headquarters and in communities with Sara Lee facilities. Outside of Chicago, most giving is decentralized, as Sara Lee facilities - across the country - work with community agencies to support programs addressing critical local needs.
We take great pride in the reputation we have built as a leader in corporate citizenship and continue this role by strategically supporting effective programs that combat domestic hunger and which address associated issues of food insecurity. We are also very much interested in innovative programs that take a holistic approach to healthy weight through energy balance; incorporating diet and nutrition education along with physical activity. The Foundation also continues to maintain its support of select cultural programs with content that is centered on diversity and inclusion, resulting in programs that are highly visible in the community.
Community Spotlight 
Chicago Sinfonietta
The Chicago Sinfonietta is a mid-sized professional orchestra that serves as a model for inclusiveness and innovation in classical music by fostering talented soloists, composers and musicians of color. Its 2011-2012 concert season features the debut of its new Music Director, Mei-Ann Chen, nine subscription concerts and two non-subscription concerts. The Sara Lee Foundation is sponsoring: Maestro Chen's inaugural concert, the Dia de los Muertos concert, and Concert IV, a tribute to Grace Bumbry's White House Performance for President and Mrs. Kennedy.
Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana Backpack Program
In the Sara Lee community of Harahan, LA, backpacks are stocked with nutritious, child-friendly, and easy-to-prepare items from each food group that are discretely distributed on Friday's or the last day before school vacation. The Backpack Program ensures that children at chronic risk of hunger have enough to eat at home, so that they arrive at school on Monday mornings ready to learn. According to a recent report by Feeding America, Louisiana has the highest rate in the country of early childhood hunger; this program is one way that Sara Lee partners in our communities to address critical needs.
Goodman Theatre
Goodman Theatre's 2011/2012 Owen Theatre Season features the New Stages Series and two world premiere plays by diverse playwrights, including Danai Gurira's The Convert and Cándido Tirado's Fish Men. The Goodman is Chicago's oldest and largest not-for-profit resident theater and is committed to developing new work and cultivating emerging theater artists. The Owen Season will support the work of an outstanding group of female and minority artists, engage and entertain diverse audiences, and foster a celebration of Chicago's rich cultural heritage.
People's Resource Center
Families who visit People's Resource Center are connected to relevant social services and empowerment programs, all aimed at helping struggling families break the cycle of poverty. Its Food Pantries help low-income DuPage County families make ends meet with: nutrition education and recipes; screening and enrollment in the federal food stamp program; and a monthly grocery cart full of nutritious food– including meat, fresh fruits and vegetables.
Northern Illinois Food Bank
Northern Illinois Food Bank has seven trucks that pick up frozen meat, produce and baked goods from 121 retail stores, which would otherwise sent to the dumpster. The meat, a valuable source of protein, is evaluated and re-labeled by volunteers before being redistributed in the community through a network of more than 600 partner agencies and food pantries. The Sara Lee Foundation has been a valuable partner in this Food Recovery Program contributing to the recovery of 8.6 million pounds of food in FY11, 43% of which was meat.
Fresh Food Partnership
The Fresh Food Partnership is a coalition of nonprofit organizations in northwest lower Michigan that serves the Sara Lee community of Traverse City. Working with the emergency food system, it increases access to locally grown, healthy and fresh fruits and vegetables while also supporting local agriculture by purchasing nutritious produce from area farms at fair market prices. Its efforts are supported by a volunteer driven transportation network and the generous contributions of individuals and foundations.
Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights
Heartland Alliance provides the technical and relational skills refugees need to become self-sufficient. Focusing on refugees who often have college degrees and a formal work history from their home countries, its Professional Skills Development initiative, helps women to re-establish their careers after resettling in the US. Wages for these women with professional skills begin at $15 per hour, a higher rate than basic entry-level, which significantly helps establish a solid path towards self-sufficiency.
YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago
The Y Healthy Kids curriculum helps youth establish lifelong healthy habits, teaches them the benefits of physical activity, and provides important nutrition education. The Sara Lee Foundation sponsors the Healthy Kids Summer program at Kelly Hall in Humboldt Park, an underserved Chicago community where half of the families live below the poverty level. Sara Lee support makes the program available to youth of all backgrounds and helps youth and their families achieve a healthy lifestyle.
Howard Area Community Center
Howard Area Community Center's SHARP (Seeing Healthy, Active Rogers Park) Kids program hosts a series of participatory cooking classes, in partnership with Share Our Strength's Cooking Matters™. The classes empower families to learn how to prepare healthy foods on a limited budget. Dietitians provide nutrition and physical activity lessons, while Chefs teach cooking skills. Participants eat as a family and go home with a bag of free groceries, allowing them to practice smart cooking at home.
Lookingglass Theatre Company
Just one week before baseball's opening day, Branch Rickey, General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, calls up Jackie Robinson to break the color-barrier and invite him to play as the Major League's first black ballplayer. J. Nicole Brooks directs Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting at Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre featuring African American personalities including baseball great Jackie Robinson, boxer Joe Louis, entertainer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and actor and activist Paul Robeson.
Greater Chicago Food Depository
The Greater Chicago Food Depository's Healthy Helpings program brings heat-and-serve meals to older adults in low-income residences, helping them overcome limited budgets and mobility to meet their nutritional needs. Made possible with the major support of the Sara Lee Foundation, the program's balanced meals are prepared with fresh ingredients at the Food Depository and delivered to participating CHA and HUD subsidized apartment buildings. The program currently serves 500 individuals a month and will expand to other agencies that serve older adults.
Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana
Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana's Healthy Living Initiative helps girls lead healthier lives by building their skills and knowledge relating to fitness, nutrition, self-esteem and relationships. Utilizing Girl Scout's century of experience in building girls of courage, confidence and character, in partnership with the Sara Lee Foundation, the Healthy Living Initiative helps girls develop a holistically healthy life that continues into adulthood.
America's Second Harvest Greater St. Joseph
Second Harvest Community Food Bank in St. Joseph, Missouri strives to end poverty in Northwest Missouri and Northeast Kansas. The Sara Lee Foundation has partnered with the Food Bank to support Backpack Buddies, its weekend feeding program. The Backpack Buddies program provides a backpack filled with nutritious, child-friendly food for school children and their siblings to take home each weekend of the school year. Without this program, many of these children would go hungry over the weekend. The program serves nearly 2000 children in 13 counties in their region, and it continues to grow.
Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency
The Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency runs Meals on Wheels, which helps feed seniors in the Sara Lee community of Traverse City as well as the five county area of Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Manistee, Missaukee, and Wexford counties. Sara Lee's support will provide 2,700 meals for seniors and home bound individuals.
Chicago History Museum
Out in Chicago on exhibit at the Chicago History Museum May 21, 2011 to February 27, 2012 presents diverse stories and perspectives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and explores issues such as language, gender expression, family relationships, politics and culture. It balances private stories with public perspectives to spotlight the inspiring and charged heritage of this diverse Chicago community, whose history truly belongs to us all.
Inspiration Corporation
The Women's Initiative at Inspiration Kitchens – Garfield Park, helps women facing homelessness and poverty achieve greater self-sufficiency. This program provides 13 weeks of job training in Chicago’s food service industry and hands-on experience through Inspiration Corporation’s social enterprise restaurant. Every year, graduates represent $900,000 in earnings for this impoverished Chicago neighborhood and the restaurant serves 3,500 free meals to working poor families.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago
The Healthy Habits program provides youth with knowledge, skills and motivation to make healthier food choices and to increase activity levels. The Healthy Habits curriculum reinforces the relationship between behaviors, choices and health. Young people learn how to determine foods' nutritional value; portion size; environmental cues that prompt eating; and how to eat away from home. Lessons are underscored by the 345,600 nutritious meals served by BGCC each year as well as activities that ensure all youth participate in 60 minutes of physical activity each day.
Robert Crown Centers for Health Education
The Sara Lee Foundation sponsors Robert Crown Centers for Health Education (RCC) in its efforts to prevent childhood obesity. Sara Lee's grant makes it possible for RCC educators to expand its FIT Curriculum to teach healthy dietary choices and promote physical activity among 7th and 8th graders. Program leaders use "Addy," a highly recognizable icon, to help students retain information about positive nutrition choices, and recognize ways they can implement those choices in their everyday lives.
Harvesters Community Food Network
Harvesters' Project STRENGTH is a nutrition education program for low-income adults. The eight-week curriculum gives participants in-depth knowledge of a healthy diet, including nutrition facts, safe cooking practices, shopping strategies, and how to make healthy meals on a budget. Each class provides hands-on cooking and food preparation experience and sends participants home with a 20-pound bag of groceries to practice their skills. Eighty percent of participants report a positive behavior change during the eight week course.
Chicago Public Media
Chicago Public Media's Community News Bureaus are located in diverse neighborhoods across the Chicagoland area. Our reporters collaborate with and learn from local residents to produce stories that reveal the breadth and diversity of the people within our region. The Bureaus are located in specific neighborhoods chosen because they are often underrepresented in the mainstream media. This results authentic, high-quality content, which is a trademark of the critical journalism and information we provide.
Universidad Popular
Universidad Popular provides a variety of programs to neighborhood residents to help transform lives and strengthen community. The Sara Lee Foundation supports the Health Literacy Initiative (HEALIN), which is a bilingual culturally-sensitive program that equips low-income Latino parents and grandparents with the knowledge and tools to maintain healthy weight, blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol. It includes nutrition education and healthy cooking courses as well as physical activity programs such as yoga, aerobics, soccer, and dance.
Art Institute of Chicago
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) is a cultural icon in India and Bangladesh. A renowned novelist, poet, musician, and philosopher—the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913—Tagore is responsible for shaping the modern Indian identity. To celebrate Tagore's 150th birthday, The Art Institute will host The Last Harvest: The Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, which is the museum's first major traveling exhibition from India and will be on view January 29 – April 15, 2012.