[April 19, 2012]

OneWest Foundation Awards Grant to Provide Proven Math Education Program to Orange County Children

The OneWest Foundation, the philanthropic arm of OneWest Bank, awarded $200,000 to support the education non-profit MIND Research Institute's Orange (News - Alert) County Math Initiative, a community partnership designed to improve the educational outcomes of students in Orange County, Calif. Launched in 2008 through a collaboration between the Orange County Department of Education, local corporate and foundation partners and MIND Research Institute, the Math Initiative is now helping 63,000 K-12 students at 107 Orange County elementary schools with MIND's innovative, visual math instructional software. OneWest Foundation's recent grant will fund the continued work of the Initiative, which is elevating the math achievement of some of the county's most disadvantaged children.

"OneWst Bank created our Foundation in 2009 to make a concentrated effort to improve the lives of those in the communities we serve," said Steven Mnuchin, Chairman of OneWest Bank. "This recent investment in MIND Research Institute fulfills our original vision of building stronger communities by supporting a program that is truly improving education in Orange County, and across the nation." This recent grant to MIND Research Institute represents the Foundation's first to the nonprofit.

"MIND is grateful to OneWest Foundation for its generous support, and commitment to improving lives in our community through education," said Ted Smith, CEO and Chairman of MIND Research Institute. "With the investment of corporations such as OneWest in the Orange County Math Initiative, MIND is able to bring our proven approach to math education to tens of thousands of children."

The Orange County Math Initiative, launched by MIND Research Institute, is designed to impact the lowest-performing schools in Orange County. Through charitable donations, partner schools are granted site licenses for MIND's award-winning ST Math® instructional software. Schools receive unlimited access to the software for use at school and at home, as well as teacher and principal professional development. Ongoing annual support is paid for by each school. The latest results of the 3rd year of the Initiative have shown that the ST Math partner schools experienced more than double the growth in math proficiency when compared to similar non-ST Math schools.

MIND Research Institute

The MIND Research Institute is a neuroscience and education research-based, non-profit corporation. MIND applies its distinctive visual approach to illustrating math concepts and building problem-solving skills as the basis for innovative, research-proven math education programs for elementary and secondary schools. MIND's programs currently reach 439,000 students and 14,000 teachers in more than 1,300 schools in 24 states. For more information, visit www.mindresearch.net.

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