More than 200 volunteers from Shutterfly and Sugar Creek Charter School, organizers from KaBOOM! and residents of the North Charlotte community will join forces on Wednesday, Aug. 29 to build a new playground at the school. The new playground’s design is based on drawings created by children who participated in a Design Day event in July.
WHY: Today’s kids spend less time playing outside than any previous generation in part because only 1-in-5 children live within walking distance of a park or playground. This play deficit is having profound consequences for kids physically, socially and cognitively. Children need a place to play every day in order to be active and healthy, something KaBOOM! has been committed to since 1996.
The new playground will provide more than 500 children in the North Charlotte community with a safe place to play. Currently, the children who attend Sugar Creek Charter School only have a small amount of out-dated equipment, which will be replaced by the new playground.
The playground is the first built by KaBOOM! and Shutterfly and is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2012 in an effort to fulfill its vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.
WHEN: Wednesday, August 29
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: Sugar Creek Charter School
4101 North Tryon St.
Charlotte, NC 28207 WHO: Hundreds of volunteers VISUALS: Before and after shots of the site
Volunteers assembling brightly colored playground equipment
Volunteers moving 43,740 square feet of safety surfacing by hand
Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the playground Sugar Creek Charter School
Sugar Creek Charter is a 12 year old, 850 student, K-8 school located in a former K-Mart near Charlotte’s center city. With a parallel emphasis on academic excellence and character education and a 2012 Composite Achievement Score of 80.2%, Sugar Creek has become one of the area’s highest performing urban schools. Shutterfly
Shutterfly’s vision is to make the world a better place by helping people share life’s joy. This inspired Shutterfly to create the Shutterfly Foundation, whose mission is to help organizations, institutions and communities harness the power of sharing motivational stories. The Shutterfly Foundation was launched in 2007 and is run by a team of employee volunteers who are committed to supporting education and family wellness in the communities where they live and work. 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. 
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: Sugar Creek Charter School
4101 North Tryon St.
Charlotte, NC 28207 WHO: Hundreds of volunteers VISUALS: Before and after shots of the site
Volunteers assembling brightly colored playground equipment
Volunteers moving 43,740 square feet of safety surfacing by hand
Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the playground Sugar Creek Charter School
Sugar Creek Charter is a 12 year old, 850 student, K-8 school located in a former K-Mart near Charlotte’s center city. With a parallel emphasis on academic excellence and character education and a 2012 Composite Achievement Score of 80.2%, Sugar Creek has become one of the area’s highest performing urban schools. Shutterfly
Shutterfly’s vision is to make the world a better place by helping people share life’s joy. This inspired Shutterfly to create the Shutterfly Foundation, whose mission is to help organizations, institutions and communities harness the power of sharing motivational stories. The Shutterfly Foundation was launched in 2007 and is run by a team of employee volunteers who are committed to supporting education and family wellness in the communities where they live and work. 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.
