The Dove Foundation, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is launching the Dove Movie Channel to provide uplifting movies to 800,000 patients and their families in children’s hospitals throughout the United States. The project is supported in part by a two-year $65,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Actor Dean Jones, Dove Movie Channel national spokesperson, says he believes that movies can change people. ‘The Dove Movie Channel can bring hope to thousands of hospitalized kids,’ says Jones.

The Dove Foundation is a national nonprofit organization chartered to encourage and promote the creation, production and distribution of wholesome family entertainment. Dove awards its Family-Approved Seal to movies and videos that are free from graphic violence, sex and profanity. Dove publishes a list of all these films that is free to anyone who requests it.

All of the films shown on The Dove Movie Channel, which provides 24 hours of programming, will have received the Dove Family-Approved Seal. Reviewers are also especially sensitive to movie themes that are appropriate for hospitalized children who may be facing life-threatening illnesses and injuries. The Dove Movie Channel is subsidized by corporate sponsors and provided to children’s hospitals without cost.

Gregg Pawlowski, director of The Dove Children’s Movie Channel, says that receiving the grant from the foundation will assist Dove in meeting its goals for securing sponsors and implementing the program nationwide. ‘The grant provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation gives us the financial resources to solicit corporate sponsors and install the Dove Movie Channel into 300 children’s hospitals and 130 Ronald McDonald Houses around the country,’ says Pawlowski.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to ‘help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.’