DESIGNED BY KIDS, BUILT BY VOLUNTEERS

WHAT:                  More than 200 volunteers from Bank of America and the Pinellas County Housing Authority, organizers from KaBOOM! and residents of the local community will join forces on Saturday, Dec. 3 to build a new playground for children who live at Rainbow Village. The new playground’s design is based on drawings created by children who participated in a Design Day event in October.

WHY:                 The new playground will provide more than 350 children in the Largo community with a new safe place to play. Currently, the children who live at Rainbow Village only have aging, worn equipment to play on that will be replaced by the bright new playground which will also incorporate features to promote physical fitness.

                           The playground will be the fourth built by KaBOOM! and Bank of America in an effort to fight the play deficit and save play for children. Bank of America is providing $72,800 toward the project with Pinellas county Housing Authority contributing $8,500. The project is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2011 in an effort to provide a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.   

WHEN:              Saturday, December 3

                          8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.             Kick off ceremony and volunteer deployment

                          11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.           Best viewing of playground construction

                          1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.             Final construction phase and adjustments

                          2:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.             Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate new play area

                          (Note: all times approximate)

WHERE:           Rainbow Village

                          12301 134th Avenue North
Largo, FL  33774

WHO:                St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster; 

                           District 51 Florida State Representative Larry Ahern; 

                           Hundreds of volunteers from the community

VISUALS:         Before and after shots of the site

                           Volunteers assembling brightly colored playground equipment

                           Volunteers moving 60,912 square feet of safety surfacing by hand

                           Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the playground

Pinellas County Housing Authority

The Pinellas County Housing Authority (PCHA) is the largest housing authority in Pinellas County providing housing and rental assistance to more than 4,600 families. The authority is rated by HUD as a High Performing agency. More information about the authority’s programs and services can be found at www.pinellashousing.com.

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 58 million consumer and small business relationships with approximately 5,700 retail banking offices and approximately 17,800 ATMs and award-winning online banking with 30 million active users. Bank of America is among the world’s leading wealth management companies and is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 4 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in more than 40 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

KaBOOM!

KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to saving play. 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. To fight this Play Deficit, social entrepreneur Darell Hammond founded non-profit KaBOOM! 15 years ago in Washington, D.C. with a vision of creating a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Since then, KaBOOM! has mapped over 85,000 places to play, built more than 2,000 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!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. 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 offices in Chicago and San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.

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