National Non-profit KaBOOM! & Parents Launch Free Playgrounds! App for iPhone, iPod, iPod touch & iPad

New app helps people find and rate playgrounds across the country

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Children and families need a great place to play within walking distance and finding that playground just became significantly easier. National non-profit KaBOOM! and Parents today announced the availability of Playgrounds!, a free iPhone®/iPod®/iPod touch®/iPad® app empowering people to find and rate playgrounds across the nation.

Sponsored by KEEN, Inc., a leader in hybrid footwear, bags and socks, the Playgrounds! app is the perfect tool for families and children who are planning playground fun. Playgrounds! uses GPS or a zip code to locate playgrounds for anyone interested in finding a great place to play. Using the app, people can rate playgrounds, leave comments and share pictures for other visitors. With the Facebook integration, people can use Playgrounds! to become fans of their favorite playgrounds and share them with their social networks. Playgrounds! allows parents the ability to plan playground play dates. The app also offers fun, age-appropriate playground activities and trivia for children.

“Playgrounds! enhances KaBOOM! efforts to create a nation-wide ‘Map of Play’ and target the areas where the play deficit continues to harm children,” says KaBOOM! Founder and CEO Darell Hammond. “Thanks to this collaboration and the creation of Playgrounds!, KaBOOM! is moving one step closer to saving play for children and realizing our vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.”

First Lady Michelle Obama recently became an inaugural user of Playgrounds!. On June 15, the First Lady helped KaBOOM! build its 2,000th playground at a charter school in Washington, D.C. and, while participating in the anniversary build, Mrs. Obama uploaded a photo of the new playground using Playgrounds!. In a speech to the National Parent Teacher Association, Mrs, Obama, called KaBOOM! “a terrific non-profit organization”, She added, "Right now they're working to map every single playground in the county so that parents can find the closest one in their neighborhood. I encourage you all to check it out and add the playgrounds in your own community.”

“It’s so important for families to have access to safe places for children to play and the Playgrounds! app makes finding those spaces and setting up playdates so easy,” says Dana Points, editor in chief of Parents. “Not only is it a great tool for parents, but the app also helps forge a sense of community pride around local play spaces.”

The application was made possible by funding from Parents and developed in part on a pro-bono basis by longtime KaBOOM! partner and software innovator SAP America, which has collaborated to build 14 playgrounds with KaBOOM! across the country.

The free Playgrounds! app is now available on the App Store™. The Playgrounds! app also resides on the KaBOOM! Map of Play – an online database of more than 85,000 playspaces throughout North America. Like the capabilities of the Playgrounds! app, the Map of Play also allows users to find, rate and upload photos of places to play. Playgrounds! is compatible with the iPhone, iPod, iPod touch and iPad (requires iOS 4.0 or later).

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 more than 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.

About Parents

Parents helps parents understand the issues and challenges that are important to them. Parents makes it a priority to answer your questions, address your concerns, advocate your causes, and celebrate the joys of parenthood. Each month, Parents harnesses the power of our more than 15 million readers to advocate continuously and tirelessly for children so that all kids can grow up in a healthy, safe and loving environment.

Contact:
Colleen Schwartz
Parents
212-551-7033
colleen.schwartz@meredith.com

Mike Vietti
KaBOOM!
202-327-0086
mvietti@kaboom.org