Foresters, KaBOOM! & Volunteers Build New Playground for Winter Park Children

Child-Designed Playground will Eventually Serve 45,000 Children and their Families

TORONTO, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ - Children in Winter Park received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 200 volunteers from Foresters^TM, the City of Winter Park, Winter Park Pop Warner and non-profit KaBOOM! The new playground will serve 45,000 children and their families in the Winter Park community for years to come.

"Foresters is more than a life insurance provider," said Kasia Czarski, Chief Membership and Marketing Officer. "Foresters also invests in its members and in communities where they live, such as Winter Park. Foresters believes in creating opportunities for families to spend healthy time together, like the Cady Way 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 Cady Way Park will provide 45,000 children and their families in the Winter Park 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 Winter Park, Winter Park Pop Warner 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.

"Cady Way Playground is one of our older playgrounds and although functional, the playground equipment at Cady Way Park is outdated and in need of replacement," said Winter Park City Manager Randy Knight. "We are extremely excited about the opportunity to work with Foresters and KaBOOM! to bring a new state-of-the-art playground to our community."

Thanks to the work of Foresters, the City of Winter Park, Winter Park Pop Warner and KaBOOM!, children and their families now have a 2,500 square-foot playground to call home that includes features such as a 360 Degree Spiral Slide, a RockBlocks Climbing Wall and an Inclined Cliff Hanger.

About the City of Winter Park
The City of Winter Park, one of the finest cities in the United States, is considered by many to be the premier urban village in Florida. With its rich heritage, strong sense of community, vast parks system, diverse economic base, and beautiful chain of lakes, the city provides a very high quality of life to its residents and visitors alike. Located just three miles north of Orlando in Orange County, the city, which consists of nine square miles and over 28 thousand residents, is described by some as a small New England village with a European flavor, evidenced by the many quaint shops and restaurants.

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™ 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 765,000ˆ 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