Foresters, KaBOOM! & Volunteers Build New Playground for Rowlett Children

Child-Designed Playground will Eventually Serve 14,000 Children and their Families

ROWLETT, Texas, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire/ - Children in Rowlett received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 200 volunteers from Foresters^TM, the City of Rowlett, the Rowlett Pardners Foundation and non-profit KaBOOM! The new playground will serve 14,000 children and their families in the Rowlett community for years to come.

"Foresters is more than a life insurance provider," said Bob Pashby, National Sales Manager with Foresters. "Foresters also invests in its members and in communities where they live, such as Rowlett. Foresters believes in creating opportunities for families to spend healthy time together, like the Wedgewood Park playground we all built here together."

Foresters, a life insurance provider committed to the well-being of families, is funding 20 playground builds across North America in 2010.By investing $1.5 million in these projects, Foresters is partnering with KaBOOM! to build playgrounds that will eventually serve nearly 250,000 children and their families.

The playground at Wedgewood Park will provide 14,000 children and their families in the Rowlett community with a great place to play. In less than eight hours, the child-designed playground was built from scratch by hundreds of volunteers from Foresters, the City of Rowlett, the Rowlett Pardners Foundation and the surrounding community. In addition, children and families spent the day playing games and participating in arts and crafts activities. Playgrounds are an ideal place for families to get to know other families and build strong communities.

"We are very excited about the partnership created with Foresters and KaBOOM!," said Jermel Stevenson, Rowlett Director of Parks and Recreation. "The community support leading up to the build has great energy as well. This playground build provides our community with a model for community development, public and private partnering, youth development centered on engaging youth in the planning process and assists our fight against obesity and promoting health and wellness in our parks system."

"The Rowlett Pardners Foundation is happy to partner with Foresters, KaBOOM!, and the City of Rowlett to build this amazing playground," said Rowlett Pardners Foundation Director Norman Tsao. "We are excited to help transform this vacant lot into a destination for a neighborhood that truly needs and deserves a place to gather and play. Most of all, we look forward to the days after all the dust has settled when we hope to find that 'a small town feel' is not just a saying but a way of life that is continually nurtured and refreshed by such projects."

Thanks to the work of Foresters, the City of Rowlett, the Rowlett Pardners Foundation and KaBOOM!, children and their families now have a 3,849 square-foot playground to call home that includes features such as a Glide Slide, Slither Slide, Steering Wheel Panel and Transfer Station.

About the Rowlett Pardners Foundation
Located in Rowlett, Texas, The Pardners Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to improving the park system of the City of Rowlett. The foundation works in cooperation with the City of Rowlett Parks and Recreation Department and the City of Rowlett Parks and Recreation Board. Through community building , volunteerism and fund raising the foundation is working to continue improvements to the parks and recreation system throughout the Rowlett community.

About the City of Rowlett
Just 20 minutes from downtown Dallas north of IH-30, surrounded by more than 30 miles of shoreline on beautiful Lake Ray Hubbard, and home to almost 55,000 residents, Rowlett is "On the Water, and On the Move!" Rowlett is ranked in the Top 25 "Best Places To Live" by Money Magazine! Rowlett is made up of young families who enjoy Parks and Recreation and sports activities regularly. Rowlett is rich in amenities that enhance all areas of our lives. Our Community Centre offers a state-of-the-art fitness center, racquetball courts, two gymnasiums, meeting and banquet rooms that are appropriate for weddings and corporate meetings, and a myriad of fitness programs and classes for all ages, from infants to seniors.

Our 12 active parks offer opportunities for low cost entertainment and sports, family outings, walking trails, fishing ponds, playgrounds and pavilions. Rowlett will soon be the hub of northeast Texas as the President George Bush Turnpike is completed through Rowlett connecting Rowlett to IH-30. This $1 billion project will be open to traffic in December 2011. Also, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is building an extension of the Blue Line to downtown Rowlett that will open in December 2012. Rowlett will be the place to be!

About KaBOOM!
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! is a national non-profit organization dedicated to saving play. Through community building, the company is focused on giving every child in America a great place to play within walking distance. Since 1996, KaBOOM! has used its innovative community-build model to bring together business and community interests to construct more than 1,900 new playgrounds, skate parks, sports fields and ice rinks across North America. KaBOOM! also offers a variety of resources, including an online community, free online trainings, grants, publications and the KaBOOM! National Campaign for Play, which includes Playful City USA and Playmakers - a national network of individual advocates for play. KaBOOM! also has offices in Chicago and San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.

About Foresters
Founded in 1874 as a fraternal benefit society, Foresters^TM champions the well-being of families through quality life insurance, unique member benefits and inspiring community activities.  Foresters shares its financial strength with more than 675,000 members in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Unity Life of Canada^‡ is a wholly owned subsidiary of Foresters. For more information, please visit www.foresters.com.

Foresters^TM is a trademark of The Independent Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9.
^‡ Unity Life of Canada, a Foresters company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Independent Order of Foresters

SOURCE Foresters