Bobs Red Mill Founders Gift $5 Million to OSU

PORTLAND, Ore.Bob and Charlee Moore, founders of Bobs Red Mill Natural Foods, gifted $5 million to Oregon State University to establish the Moore Family Center for Whole Grain Foods, Nutrition and Preventive Health in OSUs College of Health and Human Sciences.

Making healthy whole grain food is what I believe in and what I have focused on for 30-plus years," said Bob Moore, CEO. Charlee and I are particularly concerned about the pressure on young people to eat junk: pop, candy, empty calories. Far too many kids are overweight and so are their parents. Its a very serious problem for our nation and the world. This center at OSU will help provide solutions."

The Moores gift will provide endowments for the centers director and an additional professor, along with two programmatic funds to support the centers research and outreach, including a fund focused on childhood obesity. This fund will enhance the colleges current efforts to develop, deliver and evaluate effective public health obesity prevention strategies for schools and communities.

The gift also will create an endowed fellowship fund for graduate students who want to study, research and advance the health and nutritional benefits of whole grain foods. A final portion of the gift will allow the university to renovate the food research laboratory in Milam Hall where faculty and students will study whole grain foods and ways to promote healthy eating behavior; the lab will be renamed in honor of the Moore family.