MU Receives Gift from State Farm Insurance to Support Various Programs

June 11th, 2015

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Today, officials from the University of Missouri recognized State Farm Insurance Company for their recent donation of $160,000 to MU. This latest gift brings State Farm’s total giving to Mizzou academic programs to $1.8 million.

“We are thrilled to celebrate the generosity of State Farm and Mizzou’s long-standing partnership with the company,” said Garnett Stokes, MU provost. “State Farm’s continued support in important MU community outreach programs shows their dedication and investment in bettering the community and state, and we thank them for their vision.”

The money will support several MU programs including:

• The MU College of Education’s Achieve Program
• Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business’s

            Risk Management and Insurance Program

            Marketing Program

• MU College of Human Environmental Sciences’

            Personal Finance Program

            Family Impact Center

• MU Health Care’s Frank Mitchell Trauma Center for Motor Vehicle Crash Outreach
• MU Extension’s Emergency Services Training

MU College of Education – Achieve Program

The Achieve Program, housed in MU’s College of Education, is designed to assist schools with significant achievement gaps by pairing MU education students with struggling elementary students who will benefit from one-on-one tutoring outside the classroom but during the regular school day. With this latest gift, the program will expand to provide a virtual tutoring experience via the internet as well as partner with schools in St. Louis and possibly a rural Missouri school.

MU Trulaske College of Business Risk Management and Insurance Program and Marketing Program

Investment from State Farm helped launch the Trulaske College of Business Risk Management and Insurance program in 2015. This support has allowed the program to hire a director, design and implement a curriculum that will prepare students for this important field, and market this new course of study to Mizzou students interested in risk management. State Farm also donated $1,000 to the Trulaske College of Business marketing program.

MU College of Human Environmental Sciences Personal Finance Program

This program works to enhance financial literacy throughout the Mizzou community by providing valuable financial counseling and resources. These resources include educational workshops, weekly financial tips, tax preparation and MU Extension programming across the state of Missouri. Services from the program include offering 1,500 students counseling to help create student debt repayment plans, counseling for more than 200 students so they stay in school and do not drop out due to financial reasons, and free tax preparation for more than 1,700 people from Columbia’s lower-income population.

MU College of Human Environmental Sciences Family Impact Center

The MU Family Impact Center provides life-long education to improve the quality of life of individuals in the Columbia community. The center seeks to bring MU programs to central Columbia in order to reach unmet needs. The center provides resources and training including financial literacy training, behavioral health care through therapy and support groups and access to the Building Strong Families program, which is a research-based educational program that helps families identify and build on their strengths, face challenges and make informed choices. The gift from State Farm will allow the center to provide free one-on-one financial counseling and to work with more diverse clientele, specifically low-income individuals.

MU Health Care – Mobile Age-Older Adult Driving

This project, which is coordinated by the Frank L. Mitchell Jr. Trauma Center at University Hospital, will build upon a project funded by State Farm in 2013 that demonstrated peer-to-peer counseling improves outcomes among vulnerable older adults who are considering the transition to driving retirement. The goals of the project are to reduce crashes among older drivers, increase access to web-based information and training materials among professionals, and support appropriate reporting of impaired drivers for further evaluation. This focus allows older drivers to stay on the roads as long as safely possible and will help open the door for discussions on driving retirement.

Fire Rescue Training Institute – Vehicle Rescue

The Fire Rescue Training Institute (FRTI) is housed in MU Extension. The gift from State Farm will be used to fund essential training for Missouri emergency responders to highway incidents. Through this training, the responders will gain additional competency in the quick stabilization and removal of accident victims to improve patient survival while safely managing the incident scene and preventing additional accidents and injuries. These techniques enable first responders to deliver victims to treatment centers more quickly, improving patients’ chances of survival. This course is requested by emergency responders more than any other course offered by FRTI. The funding provided to MU FRTI will sponsor 30 courses providing training to an estimated 750 firefighters and emergency responders throughout the state.