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).