FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRUDENTIAL CARES PROGRAM PREPARES FOSTER CHILDREN FOR THEIR FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL



Prudential CARES Program Donates School Supplies to LA County Foster Youth



West Covina, CA - July 30, 2009 – At a time when funding for private foster care agencies has been slashed by 10% due to the revised California state budget, Prudential employees through the Prudential CARES program have come to the rescue just in time as children prepare to return to school.

Throughout the month of July, staff based out of the Prudential office located in the City of Industry have collected backpacks and various school supplies for 50 Los Angeles County school age foster youth served by Trinity Youth Services. The supplies will be distributed during a celebration on Wednesday August 5, 2009 at 6:30pm at Trinity Youth Services located at 1520 West Cameron Ave. Ste. 151, West Covina, CA 91790. The event will include dinner and an ice cream party, face painters, balloon makers and an opportunity for each child to receive a backpack and go “shopping” for supplies.

“When children are removed from abusive homes or unsafe living conditions, they often arrive with simply the clothing on their backs, much less school supplies. "The kids absolutely love the part where they get to fill the back packs themselves with the supplies spread out before them. We are excited to have Prudential sponsoring this extraordinary event for our children. They feel like they are shopping!” explains Trinity Youth Services Foster Care Director, Holly Brunton.

“We were looking for an organization to partner with our Prudential CARES program. When we found out that Trinity hosts this back-to-school event every year, we felt this was a perfect fit and immediately thought how wonderful it would be if we could expand on it and make this even more memorable for each of these children. For everything these kids have been through, we wanted to be a part of the healing process and show them that people do care about them,” said Ben C. Su, Managing Director at Prudential.

Trinity Youth Services is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides care, therapy and safe loving homes to children who have been victims of abuse, neglect and abandonment. Trinity Youth Services operates nine foster care offices and five residential treatment campuses for at-risk youth throughout California serving more than 700 children on a daily basis. Trinity Youth Services in West Covina currently serves more than 50 foster youth ranging in age from infancy to eighteen years and has been serving children in need throughout Los Angeles County for 15 years. For more information please visit www.trinityys.org or contact Roxanne Pena at rpena@trinityys.org or (909) 825-5588.

Prudential Financial, Inc., a financial services leader with approximately $542 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2009, has operations in the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Leveraging its heritage of life insurance and asset management expertise, Prudential is focused on helping approximately 50 million individual and institutional customers grow and protect their wealth. The company’s well-known Rock symbol is an icon of strength, stability, expertise and innovation that has stood the test of time. Prudential's businesses offer a variety of products and services, including life insurance, annuities, retirement-related services, mutual funds, investment management, and real estate services. For more information, please visit www.prudential.com.

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