Clockwise: Culinary students put their skills to the test during the ProStart Culinary Team Competition. An ultralight aircraft teaches endangered whooping cranes to migrate from Wisconsin to Florida as part of the Whooping Crane Recovery Plan of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. Darden CEO Joe Lee (front, left) and John Kraft, dean of the College of Business, along with a group of University of Florida alums from Darden, were on hand to award $1.2 million to the university to create a Diversity and Business Ethics Endowment.   These programs teach scholarship recipients how to study, how to manage money, where to go on campus for help, and other college survival skills. For the past four years, 100% of TELACU scholarship recipients have stayed in college. That’s compared to a 60% to 80% dropout rate of Latino students in similar circumstances. PROMOTING EDUCATION The Darden Restaurants Foundation Diversity and Business Ethics Endowment This year, the Darden Restaurants Foundation awarded $1.22 million to the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business to create the Darden Restaurants Foundation Diversity and Business Ethics Endowment. It is the first comprehensive diversity and business ethics endowment in the hospitality industry. The endowment provides for the hiring of a Darden Restaurants professor of Diversity Management to teach undergraduate and graduate courses that are open to all students at the university. At least 1,000 students each year will directly or indirectly benefit from the endowment. It will also fund up to $31,000 annually in scholarships for five undergraduate and six graduate students excelling in business ethics, and a speaker series that will bring outstanding lecturers to the campus to discuss current diversity and business ethics issues. GIVING BACK TO THE INDUSTRY ProStart Each year Darden Restaurants awards grants and other support to hospitality industry programs in colleges, universities, and other organizations around the country. ProStart is one of the programs we supported this year. The ProStart School-to-Career program, developed by the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association, prepares high school students for entry-level management jobs in the restaurant industry. The two-year program introduces high school juniors and seniors to the food-service industry and teaches them career skills. The curriculum covers 25 different subject areas and pairs students with participating restaurants to get after-school, for-credit workplace experience. One fun event that lets students put their skills to the test each year is the ProStart Culinary Team Competitions. Students graduating from the program receive certification from the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association. PROTECTING OUR NATURAL RESOURCES We believe that responsible use of the earth’s natural resources is critical if we are to feed and house the generations that follow us and preserve the earth’s natural beauty for all to enjoy. As more plant and animal inhabitants of the earth face extinction, enhancing biodiversity, protecting fragile ecosystems, and building public awareness of environmental stewardship is more important than ever. The Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin’s Whooping Crane Recovery Plan The tallest bird in America, the whooping crane stands five feet tall, has a wingspan of seven feet, and has a distinctive bugle call that can be heard for two miles. In the late 1800s there were about 1,500 of these magnificent birds in North America. But by the 1940s, their numbers had dwindled to about 15. Conservation efforts brought those numbers back to nearly 200 whoopers in the 1990s, migrating between protected refuges in Texas and Canada. They are still the most endangered bird in the United States. The Whooping Crane Recovery Plan of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin is attempting to create a second flock of migrating whooping cranes to ensure the survival of the species, in case the Canada/Texas flock does not survive. The project entails training hand-reared whooper chicks in Wisconsin to follow an ultralight aircraft to a refuge in Florida. The first chicks made the trip successfully last year and then found their own route back to Wisconsin. A $25,000 Darden Restaurants Foundation grant enabled the NRFW to purchase a vehicle used to support the migration team. The team will try to help 18 more whoopers migrate this year, with the ultimate goal of creating a flock of 100.