Every wonder why, when you watch a kid's TV cartoon or show today, they always take time out to run and jump and play? Well, they've got to do it because they've been paid to do it.
This grant was brought to you by the letters “A” and “R” — as in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the “stimulus bill.”
Sesame Workshop, the independent nonprofit corporation that produces the popular childrens’ program Sesame Street, received a $1,067,532 stimulus bill grant in August 2010, via the Department of Health and Human Services.
The funding was to promote healthy eating according to the federal Recovery.gov website:
SW [i.e., Sesame Workshop] will carry out an expansion of its highly successful Healthy Habits for Life initiative, which promotes improved nutrition and increased physical activity, targeting low-income preschool-aged children and their families and care providers.
The projected created “1.47″ new jobs, the website reported. How they could calculate this to a hundredth of a percent is anybody’s guess. In any event, that comes out to about $726,000 per job created.
The money is separate from the funds Sesame Workshop receives from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting to run the Sesame Street program on PBS stations.
The Recovery Act website lists the healthy eating project as more than 50 percent completed though most of the grant money appears to have been drawn.
Sesame Street has been in the news lately ever since Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said last week that he would like to cut the funding PBS even though he likes Big Bird, a popular character on the show. The statement prompted a public comment from PBS criticizing Romney.
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