May 17 2010
View Park Preparatory Charter Elementary received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 200 volunteers from Foresters(TM), ICEF Public Schools and non-profit KaBOOM!. The new playground will provide more than 150 children and their families in the View Park community with a great place to play for years to come.
"Foresters is more than a life insurance provider," said Arny Bereson, Director, Member Development with Foresters. "Foresters also invests in its members and in communities where they live, such as View Park. Foresters believes in creating opportunities for families to spend time together, like the playground we all built 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 more than 150,000 children and create opportunities for families to spend time together.
The playground at View Park Preparatory Charter Elementary will provide more than 150 children and 100 families in the View 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, ICEF Public Schools and the surrounding community. Playgrounds provide an opportunity for families to spend quality time together and get to know other families in their community.
"The fact is that with children in America in a state of obesity we need to do everything we can to not only give them the best academically but also physically," said Robin Harris, Principal of View Park Preparatory Charter Elementary School, an ICEF Public School.
"There have been studies done and those students who are more physically active and physically fit do better in school," said Harris. "We here at View Park Prep Elementary have been given an opportunity of a lifetime for our students, thanks to Foresters seeing a need and meeting it head on."
Thanks to the work of Foresters, ICEF Public Schools and KaBOOM!, children and their families now have a 2,279 square-foot playground to call home that includes features such as a Rock Blocks Zigzag slide, a Loopy Whoop and a Wacky Log.
Foresters investment in this playground extends beyond the work completed on build day. Foresters volunteers and the community have made a commitment to maintain the playground to ensure it is available for subsequent generations of parents and children.
Source: http://www.foresters.com/