The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in Washington, D.C., has announced a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the PepsiCo Foundation in support of its efforts to educate and train the next generation of Latino leaders.

The largest grant ever to CHCI will help fund the creation of the Latino youth leadership organization's 21st Century Leadership Center, which will be used as a convening, training, and gathering space for Latino youth and national leaders to share ideas and experiences, and support three graduate fellows and two public policy fellows in CHCI's 2014-15 fellowship cohort. Over the next nine months, CHCI-PepsiCo Foundation Fellows will take part in CHCI's leadership development sessions, interact with public policy leaders, strengthen their professional skills, and gain hands-on experience at the national level.

In addition, a portion of the grant will be used to bolster an endowment for CHCI's PepsiCo Foundation Fellowships program, which has helped support Latino youth leaders since 1978.

"I am extraordinarily grateful to the PepsiCo Foundation for their generous grant to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute," said CHCI chairman and U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX). "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. Each generation is measured by how we prepare our youth to lead and how we keep the promise and opportunity of the American dream alive for future generations, and it's never been more critical that we invest in education and leadership development for young Latinos."