Foresters, KaBOOM! & Volunteers Revitalize East Dallas Community with New Playground

Playground to enhance family well-being

DALLAS, April 27, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - A dream is now a reality for children in East Dallas as their drawings were turned into a new playground today. In less than eight hours, the play space was built with the help of more than 200 volunteers from Foresters^TM, Legacy Preparatory Charter Academy, Pathway of Life Church and non-profit KaBOOM!. The new playground will serve more than 28,000 children and their families in the community for years to come.

"Foresters believes in providing opportunities for families to spend quality time together," said Kasia Czarski, Foresters Senior Vice President, Chief Membership and Marketing Officer. "A playground is an important piece for the revitalization of a community. Not only does it provide a first step towards keeping children healthy, but it's a safe, central location for the entire neighborhood to get together."

Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in February when local children and community leaders met with organizers from KaBOOM! and Foresters to design their dream playground. The children's drawings were then used to create the final playground design.

Since 2006, Foresters has invested over $7 million with KaBOOM! with almost 100 playgrounds built or planned across the U.S. and Canada. Over their 15 year lifespan, these playgrounds will provide more than 2.6 million children and their families with an opportunity to spend quality time together. Foresters is a KaBOOM! National Partner and a founding member of the KaBOOM! Leadership Circle - a group of organizations providing long-term guidance and support to KaBOOM! and its mission.

"Because our scholars were a vital part of the playground planning process, there is an ownership awareness that has been developed and is now partnered with the Safety, Trust, Respect, Responsibility culture we practice and represent here at Legacy," said Star Fraga, Teacher Assistant at Legacy Preparatory Charter Academy.

"The church and school have normally been at the same location and it has been a place for the community to gather and where the young and old found comfort, safety and a place to belong," said Pathway of Life Church Senior Pastor Danny Wegman. "It is said that the sweetest sound on earth is the sound of laughter and children at play. With the generous gift from Foresters and KaBOOM!, our community now has a beautiful state-of-the-art playground for our children to play and families to make long lasting memories for years to come."

Thanks to the work of Foresters, Legacy Preparatory Charter Academy, Pathway of Life Church 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, Inclined Cliff Hanger and a Rockblocks Climbing Wall.

A passionate advocate for family well-being, Foresters recently launched the Tech Timeout™ challenge, which encourages families to take a pledge to turn off all electronic devices for an hour a day for one week.  For more details, visit techtimeout.com.

About Legacy Preparatory Charter School
Legacy Preparatory Charter Academy is a model school of excellence, addressing the needs of all school community stakeholders. We will prepare all students to be college and career-ready by giving them ownership of their own learning through the development of intellectual and emotional independence while instilling the values needed to propel them into becoming successful 21st century leaders.

About Pathway of Life Church
Pathway of Life Church has been a vital part of our Southeast Dallas community for 35 years. Our focus on community has provided a place where people of all nationalities, all stages of life and all ages find help in their time of need. Our emphasis on family provides a safe place for our children and youth to develop and become all they were created to be. Pathway is a church family that serves our community to make it a better place.

About Foresters
Foresters™ is a life insurance provider with a difference. The fraternal benefit society, founded in 1874, supports family well-being through quality products, unique member benefits and inspiring community activities. Foresters shares its financial strength with over one million members in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.  For more information, visit foresters.com.

Foresters™ is the trade name and a trademark of The Independent Order of Foresters, a fraternal benefit society, 789 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada M3C 1T9; its subsidiaries are licensed to use this mark.

Tech Timeout and the Tech Timeout logo are trademarks of The Independent Order of Foresters

About KaBOOM!
KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to giving kids the childhood they deserve by bringing play to those who need it most. Children today spend less time playing outdoors than any previous generation, a fact that is having disastrous consequences on their health, achievement levels, and overall well-being. Social entrepreneur Darell Hammond founded non-profit KaBOOM! in 1996 in Washington, D.C. with a vision of creating a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America because children need to play actively every day at home, in school and in their communities. Since then, KaBOOM! has mapped over 90,000 places to play, built more than 2,200 playgrounds, and successfully advocated for play policies in hundreds of cities across the country. KaBOOM! also provides communities with online tools to self-organize and take action to support play on both a local and national level. Hammond chronicles the founding of the organization and the importance of the cause of play in his The New York Times Best Seller KaBOOM!: A Movement to Save Play, now out in paperback. The book details how businesses and communities can work together to save play for children across the country. All author proceeds support KaBOOM!. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! also has an office in San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.

SOURCE Foresters