The Smile Generation and KaBOOM!, a national non-profit dedicated to child recreation, announced a partnership today with Casa Ramona Academy in San Bernardino, Calif., to build a new child-designed playground at the school with hundreds of volunteers in one day.
The playground construction will take place on Saturday, Nov. 12, at Casa Ramona Academy. In less than eight hours, the child-designed playground will be built from scratch by a team of hundreds of volunteers from The Smile Generation, Casa Ramona Academy, local residents, and organizers from KaBOOM!.
In addition to helping with the playground, Smile Generation is also setting up a mobile clinic to provide free dentistry to the families of Casa Ramona Academy.
The new playground will provide more than 500 children in San Bernardino with a safe place to play. Currently, the playground equipment at Casa Ramona Academy is nearly 40 years old and will be replaced by the new playground. The playground's design is based on drawings submitted by children at a Design Day event held in September. Since then, a locally formed playground planning committee has worked closely with The Smile Generation and KaBOOM! to prepare for the build.
"The Board of Trustees of Casa Ramona Academy is honored and pleased to be the recipient of a playground donated by The Smile Generation with the assistance of KaBOOM!. The children of our Academy and community are grateful to the many who have contributed in making this playground a reality," said Judith Valles, chairperson of the Casa Ramona Academy Charter School.
Currently, only 1-in-5 children in the U.S. live within walking distance of a park or playground, which has created a play deficit among children across the country. To address this play deficit, KaBOOM!, a Washington D.C. based non-profit, has directly led the building of more than 2,000 playgrounds with more than 1 million volunteers that serve more than 5.5 million children across North America since the organization was founded in 1996.
"We're excited to be working with an organization like The Smile Generation that is committed to addressing the play deficit among children and making children healthier," said Darell Hammond, KaBOOM! Founder and CEO and author of The New York Times Best Seller KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. "KaBOOM! believes every child deserves to have a great place to play and thanks to The Smile Generation's generosity, KaBOOM! will move one step closer to our vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America by building a wonderful playground in San Bernardino."
Smile Generation is a referral service for dentists. The Smile Generation connects patients with great dentists dedicated to delivering on the Right Fit promise: providing an exceptional patient experience and advanced clinical care. The Smile Generation family is made up of over 250 dental offices throughout Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Texas.
