WASHINGTON, DC – Top-selling Gospel artist Kirk Franklin and the Children's Defense Fund are pleased to announce a new coast-to-coast partnership to shine a light on 37 million people, including 13 million children, living in poverty in the richest nation on earth. This new collaboration will spark service opportunities and better policy choices in states and communities where the majority of poor children live, and launch a benefit concert and rally on the National Mall.

“Kirk’s moving life story and musical genius are so inspiring and completely in tune with CDF’s work with and on behalf of low-income and minority youth struggling to beat the odds,” said Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund. “He will be a wonderful ambassador for CDF and for America’s poorest age group: children. By joining hands we can lift children higher on a national agenda currently obsessed with slashing programs for hard-pressed working families and heaping tax breaks on millionaires and billionaires.”

Gospel music mogul Kirk Franklin just received a 2006 Grammy Award nomination for his #1 hit single “Looking For You” as Best Gospel Performance. One of the biggest selling contemporary Gospel artists, Franklin altered the face of contemporary Gospel music more than ten years ago when he released his debut album, Kirk Franklin and the Family, the first Gospel album to sell more than a million units. His sixth and newest CD, Hero, debuted at #1 on Billboard Magazine’s Top Gospel and Christian Album Chart and remains in the #1 position after 14 consecutive weeks on the charts. While Franklin is a writer, performer, musician, businessman, youth pastor, record label President/CEO and entrepreneur, he says the backbone of his success stems from his roles as husband and father of four children. In late January, Franklin and his wife Tammy will celebrate their 10-year anniversary by renewing their vows during a special ceremony in Dallas.

Franklin is exploring the participation of friends and fellow music industry leading lights in a July 2006 benefit concert. “I’ve grown up hearing about the good work of the Children's Defense Fund,” said Franklin, who himself overcame a hard scrabble childhood in Fort Worth, Texas, and currently works against gang violence in greater Los Angeles. “Having been raised by an aunt who set the CDF kind of example, I can truly say that this great organization already feels like family to me, and I look forward to doing all I can to amplify their message.”

“Hurricane Katrina ripped the mask off of the poverty and festering racism and what I call the ‘new slavery,’ the pipeline to prison so many youth experience,” said Edelman. “Yet our national attention span is abysmally short. Kirk Franklin and CDF are in this battle together for the long-term. We look forward to joining ranks with millions of Americans to stand for justice for children and the poor.”

For more than 30 years, the Children’s Defense Fund has worked to inform people about issues critical to children and their families. Visit www.childrensdefense.org for more information regarding the research, public policy initiatives, programs and field work of CDF throughout the country.