Foresters, KaBOOM! & Volunteers Encourage Quality Family Time by Building New Playground for New Brunswick Children

Child-Designed Playground will Eventually Serve 4,500 Children and their Families

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ, May 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ - Children in New Brunswick received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 400 volunteers from Foresters^TM, a life insurance provider committed to the well-being of families, Greater Brunswick Charter School and non-profit KaBOOM!. The new playground will serve 4,500 children and their families in the local community for years to come.  Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in March 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.

"Foresters shares its financial strength with its members and communities where they live, such as New Brunswick," said Chris Pinkerton, Foresters President, U.S. Division; President & CEO, First Investors. "Playgrounds are an ideal place for families to get to know other families and build strong communities. This new playground at Greater Brunswick Charter School will provide opportunities families to spend quality time together for years to come."

Foresters has invested over $3 million with KaBOOM! to build 36 playgrounds across North America since 2006. These playgrounds will eventually serve more than 575,000 children, providing them and their families with a place where they can play, learn and have fun together.

The playground at Greater Brunswick Charter School will provide 4,500 children and their families in the New Brunswick community with a great place to play and engage in healthy family time. In less than eight hours, the child-designed playground was built from scratch by hundreds of volunteers from Foresters, Greater Brunswick Charter School and the surrounding community. In addition, children and families spent the day playing games and participating in arts and crafts activities.

"The entire Greater Brunswick Charter School family and surrounding community are incredibly grateful for the gift of this beautiful new playground," said Lisa Porricelli, Grade 4/5 Teacher at Greater Brunswick Charter School. "Our children now have a place to climb, swing and play that is fun and safe and our community has a wonderful space to gather together for outdoor family activities. We're grateful to Foresters and KaBOOM! for making it all possible!"

Thanks to the work of Foresters, Greater Brunswick Charter School 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 Slither Slide and Swings.

About Greater Brunswick Charter School
Greater Brunswick Charter School is a free, independent K-8 public charter school established in 1998. Our school membership reflects the wonderful diversity of the greater New Brunswick area, with families coming from a wide variety of economic and ethnic backgrounds. We seek to educate the whole child as we pursue our vision to be a community-oriented public school where students demonstrate independence and self direction, confidence, strong academic and social skills, a passion for learning, and a responsibility to their education, school, families and community.

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 835,000ˆ members in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Unity Life of Canada^‡, a wholly owned subsidiary of Foresters, represents Foresters in Canada. 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.
ˆIncludes total number of UK Child Trust accounts
^‡ Unity Life of Canada, a Foresters company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Independent Order of Foresters

About 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 almost 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.

SOURCE Foresters

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