Foresters, KaBOOM! & Volunteers Build New Playground for Southeast Atlanta Children

Child-Designed Playground will Eventually Serve 7,500 Children and their Families

ATLANTA, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ - Thomasville Heights Elementary School received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 200 volunteers from Foresters(TM), the school and non-profit KaBOOM! The new playground will serve 7,500 children and their families in the Atlanta community for years to come.

"Foresters is more than a life insurance provider," said Bruce Burak, National Sales Manager with Foresters. "Foresters also invests in its members and in communities where they live, such as Atlanta. Foresters believes in creating opportunities for families to spend healthy time together, like the Thomasville Heights Elementary 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 more than 250,000 children and their families.

The playground at Thomasville Heights Elementary will provide 7,500 children and their families in the southeast Atlanta 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 school 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.

"With the addition of this playground, our children and their families will have a safe place to connect and play," said Thomasville Heights Elementary Principal Charles Penn. "This play space is going to be a tremendous asset to our entire community."

Thanks to the work of Foresters, Thomasville Heights Elementary and KaBOOM!, children and their families now have a 3,600 square-foot playground to call home that includes features such as a Slither Slide, Rockblocks Climbing Wall and Tic-Tac-Toe Activity panel.

About Thomasville Heights Elementary School

Thomasville Heights Elementary School is located in the Thomasville Heights community in southeast Atlanta. The original school was built in 1906 on land donated to the school system by Mr. Henry Thomas, a former slave. The school strives to provide a positive, safe, and nurturing environment in which staff, parents, students, and the surrounding community are all invested in academic excellence. One of the school's primary goals is to create and ensure a healthy school culture that inspires lifelong learning among both students and adults. The school also firmly believes that all students have an inalienable right to a superior education, no matter what their personal circumstances might 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 1,800 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

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