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State Farm® Youth Advisory Board announces new Associate Board Members

November 23, 2011

Bloomington, Ill., November 22, 2011 – The State Farm Youth Advisory Board welcomes 15 new youth leaders as Associate Board members.

As a leadership board, they direct $5 million each year in grants awarded to youth-led service-learning projects. In August, the board awarded 62 grants to address natural and societal disaster preparedness, driver safety, financial literacy, environmental responsibility and access to higher education/closing the achievement gap.

The new members range in age from 17 to 20 and were selected from more than 1,100 national applications. The majority of the board’s work is done through a virtual environment, and they convene three times throughout the calendar year. These new members will serve along with the existing 15 members, comprising the full 30-member board.

Newly selected members have the opportunity to serve a two-year term, committing about 15 hours a month to the board.  Associate board members receive a $3,000 scholarship. Upon successful completion of the first year, Associate members will be considered for a second year as a board member and an additional $5,000 scholarship. Board members use the scholarships for post-secondary education at a four-year, two-year, or vocational training program.

“We value this opportunity to engage youth as strategic leaders partnering with State Farm to help improve their education and their communities,” said Kathy Payne, Senior Director – Education Leadership at State Farm. “Their leadership is critical to our nations’ success as we work together to build strong, safe, well-educated communities.”

Board members were chosen to represent each of the 12 U.S. State Farm zones, the Canadian zone and Corporate and Enterprise zones. The new board members are:

• Brianna Pang                           Oakland, CA
• Megan Byrt                               Edmonton, AB
• Cynthia Villalvazo                    Kansas City, KS
• Ana Bautista                             Jacksonville, FL
• Charles Wondergem                 Grand Rapids, MI
• Kaitlyn Frederick                      Carlsbad, NM
• Hamza Musse                           St. Paul, MN
• Garrett Holt                              Knoxville, TN
• Timothy Hwang                        Gaithersburg, MD
• Christie Taylor                         Sparta, NJ
• Kelsey West                             Portland, OR
• Karli Wells                               Columbia, SC
• Gustavo Resendiz                    Houston, TX
• Sara Salmon                            Savoy, IL
• Rosaline Zhang                        Bellevue, WA

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About State Farm®:
State Farm and its affiliates are the largest provider of car insurance in the U.S. and is a leading insurer in Canada. In addition to providing auto insurance quotes, their 17,800 agents and more than 65,000 employees serve 81 million policies and accounts – more than 79 million auto, home, life and health policies in the United States and Canada, and nearly 2 million bank accounts. Commercial auto insurance, along with coverage for renters, business owners, boats and motorcycles, is also available. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company is the parent of the State Farm family of companies. State Farm is ranked No. 37 on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information, please visit http://www.statefarm.com or in Canada http://www.statefarm.ca.

About the Youth Advisory Board: The State Farm Youth Advisory Board is a diverse group of 30 youth, ages 17-20, who were chosen through a competitive process to lead and oversee this $5 million/year signature service-learning initiative.  The Youth Board identified the issues, issued competitive grants and will now provide technical assistance, communication and oversight to site grantees.

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