Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Chase Anderson and UnitedHealthcare teamed up today to ensure eligible students from Townsend Street School go home with nutritious food every weekend during the school year.

UnitedHealthcare donated $11,000 to Anderson’s Dreambuilders program to fund the initiative. Blessings in a Backpack, a national nonprofit that provides low-income elementary school children who might otherwise go hungry with healthy food and snacks for the weekend, will administer the program. Beginning with the new school year, more than 100 students will leave Townsend Street School every Friday with backpacks filled with food.

Employee volunteers from UnitedHealthcare helped beautify the school by mulching and pulling weeds, painting walls, and reorganizing and restocking bookshelves in the school library.

About Dreambuilders

The Dreambuilders Foundation is a non-profit organization that works with pro athletes across the country to help financially, physically and mentally-challenged kids receive the items, opportunities and equipment they need to reach their dreams.

About UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States, UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.2 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter.

About Blessings in a Backpack

Hunger has both short- and long-term adverse effects on children’s health and ability to succeed in school. Blessings in a Backpack mobilizes communities, individuals, and resources to provide food on the weekends for elementary school children who might otherwise go hungry. Last year, Blessings provided 3 million hunger-free weekends for 87,300 children in 45 states and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.blessingsinabackpack.org.