Child-Designed Playground will Eventually Serve 4,500 Children and their Families
Montreal, QC, August 20, 2011 – Children in Montreal received a brand new playground today thanks to the effort of more than 200 volunteers from ForestersTM, a life insurance provider committed to the well-being of families, Edward Murphy School, the English Montreal School Board and non-profit KaBOOM! The new playground will serve 4,500 children and their families in the Montreal community for years to come. Planning for the playground began at a Design Day event held in June 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 Montreal,” Alain Legault, Sales Director, Quebec and Eastern Canada with Unity Life. “Playgrounds are an ideal place for families to get to know other families and build strong communities. This new playground at Edward Murphy School will provide opportunities for families to spend quality time together for years to come.”
Since 2006, Foresters has invested over $7 million with KaBOOM! and built or planned almost 100 playgrounds across the U.S. and Canada. Over their 15 year lifespan, these playgrounds will provide more than 2.6 million children and their families with the opportunity to spend quality time together. Foresters is a KaBOOM! National Partner and a founding member of the KaBOOM! Leadership Circle � a group of organizations providing long-term guidance and support to KaBOOM! and its mission.
The playground at Edward Murphy School will provide 4,500 children and their families in the Montreal 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, Edward Murphy School, the English Montreal School Board and the surrounding community. In addition, children and families spent the day playing games and participating in arts and crafts activities.
“We are truly fortunate to have been selected by Foresters and KaBOOM! from many applicants to have our schoolyard not just renewed from a sea of badly broken asphalt, but transformed into something we could only previously have dreamt about,” said Nancy Richer, Principal, Edward Murphy School. “The benefit for every Edward Murphy student, for your child, is enormous. Foresters and KaBOOM! build play yards throughout North America and we are the second Montreal area school to be selected.”
Thanks to the work of Foresters, Edward Murphy School, the English Montreal School Board and KaBOOM!, children and their families now have a 2,500 square-foot playground to call home that includes features such as an Inclined Cliff Hanger, a Rockblocks Climbing Wall and a Zigzag Slide.
About Edward Murphy School/English Montreal School Board
Located in the southeastern section of Montreal, Edward Murphy is an elementary school renowned for its innovative learning environment. The school focuses on a child-centered approach to education and develops each student�s moral values, respect for others and sense of accountability. The school offers two programs: English Core and French immersion from Kindergarten to grade 6. Nancy Richer is the principal of Edward Murphy, located at 6800 Pierre-de-Coubertin avenue, in the Mercier-hochelaga-Masisonneuve district.
About Foresters
Founded in 1874 as a fraternal benefit society, ForestersTM 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 835,000 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™ 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
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.
