JetBlue Airways and KaBOOM! Embark on their 15th Playground Build Together

OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) today is proud to announce a partnership with the Community School for Creative Education and KaBOOM! to build a playground in Oakland, CA, reaffirming its commitment to the West Coast community. JetBlue and long-standing partner KaBOOM! have worked together over the last seven years to build playgrounds for children across the airline's network. The playground location was determined in February by JetBlue's customers who were invited to vote on the next playground location on its Facebook page. The Bay Area was the lucky winner and will have a brand new park this summer, the 15th playground built through the partnership and the third in California.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110404/NY76997LOGO )

"While it may be our 15^th KaBOOM! build, this is the first customer chosen one! We're really proud to have our customers and crewmembers participate in the process from day one and couldn't be happier with the location," said JetBlue's Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Icema Gibbs. "We look forward to a day of building and fun-filled activities at the Community School for Creative Education and KaBOOM! We've been an active member of the Bay Area community since our beginning and can't think of a better way to strengthen our commitment than to partner with KaBOOM! to create a safe space for our kids to play at the Community School for Creative Education."

"KaBOOM! is thrilled to continue our tremendous work with our National Partner, JetBlue," said KaBOOM! Founder and CEO Darell Hammond. "Every child deserves to have a great place to play and we made that possible for children at the Community School for Creative Education, while bringing KaBOOM! one step closer to our vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America."

"Community School for Creative Education is honored to be chosen as recipients of a KaBOOM! JetBlue playground!" said Dr. Ida Oberman, Community School for Creative Education Founder & Director of Development and External Affairs at. "We are thrilled that the children of Community School and our neighborhood will have the opportunity to enjoy recreation and play in a healthy, safe, and fun environment. This playground fulfills an important aspect of our school mission, which is to provide children with opportunities for play and creativity. On behalf of our school community and neighborhood, we are eternally grateful to KaBOOM! and JetBlue!"

As the funding partner for this build, JetBlue volunteers and community residents will work side–by-side to create a new playground for the children of the Community School for Creative Education.  This will be JetBlue's second playground built in California this year and record fourth playground built in 2012 (Long Beach, CA; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Boston, MA: San Francisco, CA; and New York, NY). In seven years, JetBlue and KaBOOM! have built 15 playgrounds, engaged more than 3,000 volunteers and served more than 8,000 children every year by providing a safe place to play.

About Community School for Creative Education
Community School for Creative Education, is the only free, Waldorf-inspired  multicultural urban charter community school in the nation. Community School opened in East Oakland in September 2011. Its mission is to advance equity by offering a Waldorf-inspired, college-prep, culturally-rich education to the diverse students of Oakland. In partnership with parents, community-based organizations, and accomplished educators, we launched this multi-cultural, multi-lingual, community-owned school for 102 low-income, and in poverty K-3 students (soon to be 300 pre-K-8 students) in East Oakland, where students currently only have a 60% chance of graduating high school. We assembled a team of educators, with a combined 120 years of Waldorf experience; their diversity and that of our students, mirrors the community we serve, and is a crucial element in our ability to secure powerful community partnerships and support from parents, local social service organizations, the school district and the county.

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! in 1996 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 89,000 places to play, built more than 2,100 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.

About JetBlue Corporate Social Responsibility
JetBlue is committed to the cities it serves through support and alignment with not-for-profit organizations that focus on children, education, communities and the environment. Through a variety of programs and activities, JetBlue crewmembers are encouraged to help make an impact and inspire greatness in others while enriching the lives of individuals and communities across the airline's network. Through JetBlue's Community Connection Volunteer Program and other Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, JetBlue partners with a variety of philanthropic and community-focused organizations, including KaBOOM!, DoSomething.org, The American Cancer Society and their Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walks; First Book, a not-for-profit organization with the mission to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books; and PBS KIDS, where JetBlue partnered to create Soar with Reading – Let Your Imagination Take Flight, a literacy campaign to help raise readers. In addition, JetBlue has created a platform called Jetting to Green which encourages environmentally-friendly practices through education and volunteerism.

About JetBlue Airways
JetBlue is New York's Hometown Airline™ with focus cities in Boston, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, Los Angeles, New York City, Orlando and San Juan. Known for its award-winning service and free in-flight entertainment as much as its low fares, JetBlue offers the most legroom in coach of any U.S. airline (based on average fleet-wide seat pitch for U.S. airlines)  as well as super-spacious Even More Space seats. JetBlue is also America's first and only airline to offer its own Customer Bill of Rights, with meaningful and specific compensation for customers inconvenienced by service disruptions within JetBlue's control. Visit www.jetblue.com/promise for details. JetBlue serves 71 cities with 800 daily flights. Later this year JetBlue plans to introduce service to Providence, Rhode Island, as well as Cartagena, Colombia; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; and Samana, Dominican Republic this November, subject to receipt of government approval. With JetBlue, all seats are assigned, all fares are one-way, and an overnight stay is never required. For information call 1-800-538-2583 (TTY/TDD 1-800-336-5530) or visit www.jetblue.com.

SOURCE JetBlue Airways

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