JetBlue Airways and KaBOOM! Build the First-Ever Playground for
K.C. Wright Leadership Academy and the Children of Tamarac, FL
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.,
Nov. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/
-- JetBlue Airways (Nasdaq: JBLU) today is proud to announce a
partnership with Kathleen C. (KC) Wright Leadership Academy and
KaBOOM!, the national non-profit dedicated to saving play. The kid
friendly airline has partnered with KaBOOM! to build the first-ever
playground at K.C. Wright Leadership Academy located in
Tamarac, FL, further highlighting
the airline's commitment to Fort
Lauderdale and the surrounding community. K.C. Wright
Leadership Academy students did not previously have a playground to
enjoy. As children discover the world through play, the new
playground now provides more than 150 children in the local
community with a safe location for recreation. Since 2005,
JetBlue and long-standing partner KaBOOM! have worked together to
create safe play spaces for children across JetBlue's communities
and help fight the deficit of play for children in underserved
neighborhoods.
(Logo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110404/NY76997LOGO )
The playground at K.C. Wright Leadership Academy was truly
designed for students by students. The new playground's
blueprint is based on drawings created by children from the school
who participated in a Design Day event in September. The
students have also decided to "play it forward" with a penny wars
campaign to raise funds to donate to a future playground build in
another community in southern Florida. K.C. Wright Leadership Academy is a
tuition-free, public charter school.
"Fort Lauderdale was JetBlue's
first destination, so we have a strong connection to the city and
surrounding communities. We're really excited to work with our
longtime partner KaBOOM! and the Florida Panthers
organization to provide the first playground for students at K.C.
Wright Leadership Academy," said JetBlue's Chief Operating Officer
Rob Maruster. "Play is such an
important part of a child's development. This playground will serve
as a source of recreation and a safe place to play for the entire
Tamarac community."
More than 200 volunteers from JetBlue, the Florida Panthers,
K.C. Wright Leadership Academy, organizers from KaBOOM! and
residents of the Tamarac worked
side by side to build the new playground at K.C. Wright Leadership
Academy. Today's kids spend less time playing outside than
any previous generation in part because only one in five 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.
"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 K.C. Wright Leadership Academy, while bringing
KaBOOM! one step closer to our vision of a great place to play
within walking distance of every child in America."
"Our entire school community is honored to have been chosen by
KaBOOM! for this playground build. Our teachers, administration,
staff, and parents at Kathleen C. Wright Leadership Academy have
worked collaboratively with our partners to ensure a successful
build for our deserving students. In keeping with our mission, we
know that this playground will have a profound impact on our
students both inside and outside the classroom by creating positive
and healthy experiences for them through fun, physical activity
that will help to increase their concentration and focus at
school," said Kathleen C. Wright Leadership Academy Assistant
Principal, Donald G. Nicolas. "In
addition, the benefits of play also encourage high academic
achievement which is the expectation for our students. We
anticipate continuing this relationship with JetBlue and the
Florida Panthers that has been forged through the building of this
play space. This playground will make a tremendous impact on our
school campus and our neighboring community for years to come."
JetBlue and KaBOOM! have worked together over the last seven
years to create play spaces for children. This partnership
has successfully engaged more than 3,600 volunteers to move 15
tractor trailers full of mulch and build 15 playgrounds, which now
benefit more than 10,000 children. The playground at K.C. Wright
Leadership Academy marks the 16th playground build, four
in Florida, through the
collaboration. This is also JetBlue's fifth build in 2012
(Long Beach, CA; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Boston, MA: San
Francisco, CA; and Fort
Lauderdale, FL). JetBlue Airways is a KaBOOM! National
Partner, a group of organizations providing long-term guidance and
support to KaBOOM! and its mission.
About K.C. Wright Leadership Academy
Kathleen C. Wright Schools Inc. was founded in 2009 in memory of
and as a legacy to the late Dr. Kathleen C.
Wright. After teaching at Dillard High School for 16 years,
she became the first Black person elected to serve on the School
Board of County and also the first Black person to serve on any
school board in the State of
Florida. As a board member, Dr. Wright served two, four-year
terms (1974-1982) and was a strong advocate of school integration
and affirmative action. She was dedicated to providing a quality
education to all of Broward
County's children. Both the Broward County Public Schools Administration
Building and its street location are named in her honor. In
November 2010, Broward County Public Schools approved K.C.
Wright Schools Inc.'s first charter application, Kathleen C. Wright
Leadership Academy (KCWLA), to serve children in grades
Kindergarten through 8th Grade. We are a college preparatory school
focused on providing the best for our students including
opportunities for leadership training and character building.
About the Florida Panthers
Sunrise Sports & Entertainment is the premier company of its
kind in South Florida. Florida
Panthers Social Media is powered by Ford - follow us on Twitter and
Facebook. Home to the Florida Panthers Hockey Club and
internationally recognized concerts and events, the Broward County-owned BB&T Center is one of
the top ranked venues of its kind in the world.
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 90,000 places to play,
built more than 2,200 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!: A
Movement to Save Play, now out in paperback. 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
At JetBlue Airways, our commitment to corporate social
responsibility goes beyond raising cause awareness. We are
dedicated to developing impactful charitable partnerships,
supporting and aligning ourselves with the communities in the
cities we serve, and creating significant volunteer experiences for
our crewmembers. Our focus is to create programs and
opportunities and fully engage our resources to connect with our
communities within the areas of Youth & Education, Community,
and the Environment. In addition, we align our efforts to reflect
the diverse interests and core values of our business by striving
to enrich the lives of others. Moving forward, we will sustain
JetBlue's charitable efforts through continuous support and unique
programs that help promote positive social and environmental
change.
About JetBlue Airways
JetBlue is New York's Hometown Airlineâ„¢ with other focus
cities in Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Los
Angeles, Orlando and
San Juan. Known for its
award-winning service and free TV 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) 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
74 cities with 750 daily flights and plans to launch service to
Providence, Rhode Island on
Nov. 29, 2012 and Charleston, South Carolina and Albuquerque, New Mexico in early 2013. 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