Delta, KaBOOM! Partner to Build First Playground in Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS, July 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) has partnered with KaBOOM! to build a playground at Hiawatha Leadership Academy – Northrop in Minneapolis. It was the airline's first playground build in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area following two previous playground construction projects in the Seattle area and one in Los Angeles. Minneapolis marks the fourth KaBOOM! build for Delta, and one more playground build is scheduled to take place in Atlanta in October.

"Delta people strive to be good stewards of the communities where we live, work and serve with community organizations like KaBOOM! and the Hiawatha Leadership Academy - Northrop," said Andy Zarras, Delta's vice president – Airport Customer Service, Minneapolis/St. Paul. "It's a real testament to each member of the Delta team that we're able to help make the Twin Cities an even better place where thousands of children have access to facilities that promote leading active, healthy lives."

At the event, Zarras surprised attendees by presenting a check to the Hiawatha Leadership Academy – Northrop for $10,000, which will help with the long-term maintenance of the playground as well as support the organization's other educational programs.  

More than 150 community volunteers, including more than 110 Delta people, mixed concrete, shoveled mulch, and assembled the new playground structure in just six hours as part of the one-day build.  

The Hiawatha Leadership Academy – Northrop school building is undergoing renovations after it stood vacant for more than eight years and will open for the 2014-2015 school year. Inspectors deemed the current playground unfit for use. A new playground will ensure that all of Hiawatha Leadership Academy – Northrop's 1,400 scholars as well as neighborhood children have a safe place to play and stay physically active throughout the school day and year.

Through its Force for Global Good, Delta works to promote an improved quality of life for everyone in the communities it serves. Delta's nearly 10,000 Minnesota-based employees are part of the fabric of the community, building playgrounds for children in partnership with KaBOOM!, collecting donations of money and life-saving blood for the American Red Cross, and walking in support of Twin Cities Pride and the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, among many other projects.

At the airport, Delta operates 445 peak-day departures to 130 destinations from its third largest hub at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. The airline has invested $25 million to update restaurants featuring world-class cuisine, gate-house dining and iPads for customer use and ordering in concourse G. Delta has also made renovations to its Delta Sky Club on concourse F and offers Sky Priority services and gate area power recharging stations.

Delta Air Lines serves nearly 165 million customers each year. This year, Delta was named the 2014 Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine and was named to FORTUNE magazine's 50 Most Admired Companies, in addition to being named the most admired airline for the third time in four years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 333 destinations in 64 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs nearly 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry's leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia as well as a newly formed joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with key hubs and markets including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York-JFK, New York-LaGuardia, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Tokyo-Narita. Delta has invested billions of dollars in airport facilities, global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Additional information is available on delta.com, Twitter @Delta, Google.com/+Delta, Facebook.com/delta and Delta's blog takingoff.delta.com.

KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to the bold new goal of ensuring that all children, particularly the 16 million American children living in poverty, get the balanced and active play they need to thrive. KaBOOM! has been a powerful champion for play since its founding in 1996, working with partners to build, improve and open more than 15,000 playgrounds, engage more than 1,000,000 volunteers and serve more than 6,600,000 children. KaBOOM! creates and catalyzes great places to play, inspires, empowers and leads play advocates, and educates and elevates the societal conversation about the importance of play in children's lives. For more information, visit kaboom.org/act or follow the conversation on why #playmatters at twitter.com/kaboom or facebook.com/kaboom.

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SOURCE Delta Air Lines