Toyota putting its money where your mouth is

By investing $1.1 million to further 4-H programs focused on water quality and conservation, they are putting their money in something that goes into all our mouths – clean, fresh water.

Toyota’s $1.1 million gift will go to further 4‑H2O Community Projects as well as sponsoring the 2012 4-H National Youth Science Day.

4-H ₂ O Community Projects is a nationally recognized environmental stewardship agenda drawing upon youth, volunteers and educators from eight land-grant universities in pursuit of high-quality, empirical science programs developed by the nation's Cooperative Extension System. Through 4-H ₂ O Community Projects, young people in California, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New York City, Texas and West Virginia learn how to protect and conserve freshwater resources through activities like testing water-quality, watershed cleanup activism and rain garden construction, while simultaneously building math and science abilities.

"Toyota's generous and continued support has vastly helped to strengthen and broaden 4-H's ability to develop and implement high-quality positive youth development programs in environmental sciences," said Donald T. Floyd Jr., president and CEO of National 4-H Council. "Additionally, the leadership, engagement and caring support of Toyota volunteers with 4-H Science programming is helping to build the next generation of our nation's scientists and engineers, and is equipping 4-H youth to step up and make measurable differences in their communities."

Toyota will also sponsor the fifth annual 4-H National Youth Science Day (NYSD)on Oct. 10. The premier 4-H rally will bring together thousands of kids nationwide to complete in the 2012 National Science Experiment, which this year focuses on Engineering Robotic Solutions. Toyota's sponsorship will serve to help to exponentially raise community outreach surrounding NYSD and boost the event's Web presence at 4-H.org/NYSD.

"For the fifth consecutive year, we're proud to partner with 4-H to continue empowering our nation's youth to protect the earth's resources," said Pat Pineda, group vice president of philanthropy at Toyota Motor North America. "Toyota's partnership with 4-H has already resulted in nearly 10,000 youth saving almost 140 million gallons of water, and we look forward to continuing this momentum in the coming year."

Furthermore, this is just one of Toyota’s many philanthropic endeavors in the areas of environment and education. Four years ago they launched TogetherGreen, a $20 million, five-year alliance with Audubon to fund conservation projects, train environmental leaders and offer volunteer opportunities to significantly benefit the environment.

In addition, the Toyota U.S.A. Foundation’s has earmarked a $100 million endowment in support of K‐12 programs in math, science and environmental science.

All this deserves a tip of the Torque News hat to Toyota for keeping it clean, keeping it real.