KaBOOM! CEO talking at TEDxCMU (Carnegie Mellon University). Watch it.
Zynga recently helped KaBOOM! build a playground with Mission YMCA in San Francisco. The time-lapse above is good, especailly the fantastic mural the community painted.
If you play Cityville, you can now build a KaBOOM! playground and all proceeds come back to us. I don’t play the game, but I’ve seen some screenshots and it looks really good. If you play Cityville, check it out and let me know how it works.
Glowing a little bit from seeing one of our own in the video running before First Lady Michelle Obama’s amazing speech.
Check it at 4:54.
Your child can be my boss for a day
Your kid can be a CEO for the day! KaBOOM! is seeking illustrations from little artists that depict their favorite way to play outdoors. One grand prize winner will get to come to Washington, DC to be the KaBOOM! CEO for the day. Enter by 7/3!
So we launched our new website at work. It’s a little more beta than we’d like, but it’s the best 3.5 full time developers, a VP, a operations manager, and a lowly qa/product manager could do in 6 weeks.
Get and give the gift of play!
Our gift to you this holiday season: a gift card for 60 minutes of play! Redeemable anytime, anywhere.
The best part, you can share the 60 minute gift card with all of your friends on Facebook! Each time you give a gift card, you’ll earn an additional 5 minutes for yourself. If a friend shares a gift card back to you, you’ll earn another 60 minutes!
We built another playground in my hometown last week. This one is right on the revitalized and beautiful riverfront. Usually, the bands around the center tower of the Renaissance Center are usually GM’s blue, but I’m guessing it’s been changed for Breast Cancer Awareness month.
"Intense focus on one sport and adult-driven pressures to perform are taking their psychological toll on children, causing concentration problems, fatigue, and irritability. In fact, the trend toward starting kids in organized sports at younger ages isn’t necessarily setting the stage for an active lifestyle later on in life — 70 percent of kids give up sports entirely by age 13. When asked by Michigan State University researchers why they quit sports, kids almost universally said, “It’s not fun anymore."
Apply for a $750 spruce grant for your local playground
Hi folks!
Thanks to generous support from Dr Pepper Snapple Group (as part of their Let’s Play initiative), KaBOOM! will be awarding grants of $750 each to communities this year who wish to make their playgrounds cleaner, safer and more inviting. The next deadline is August 15 so be sure to apply soon!
If you can help us spread the word on this, we’d really appreciate it.
"As KaBOOM! expands its focus to helping communities self-organize and advising governments, it has become harder to keep track of its influence. Staff members say they regularly attend play conferences where they hear about playgrounds that were inspired by KaBOOM! Now, the organization is developing a “badging” system to recognize community leaders like Madra Belmont who have successfully built playgrounds."
My job, as described by David Bornstein, in the New York Times.
All in a days work.
