Volunteers To Transform Concrete Courtyard Into A Child-Designed Playground At The Burgundy In Dallas

Today more than 200 volunteers from UnitedHealthcare and the Dallas area will build a new playground for residents of the Burgundy condominiums, a low-income housing community in Northwest Dallas.

The new 2,500-square-foot playground will include a triple racer slide, tic-tac-toe wall and a spiral climber, among other activities. The playground’s design is based on drawings created by Dallas children who participated in a “design day” event in October.

Managed by the Burgundy Council of Co-Owners, the complex's Home Owner Association (HOA), the Burgundy has 180 units gathered around five courtyards, but the complex offers no play spaces or playgrounds within walking distance. This project brings the community together to provide a safe and engaging place for children living at The Burgundy to play year-round.

The volunteers are working with KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to saving play by providing a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. The Dallas playground, one of more than 150 such projects led by KaBOOM this year, will be the tenth playground created by KaBOOM! and UnitedHealthcare as part of the latter’s “Do Good. Live Well.” program, an employee-volunteer initiative to prevent obesity.

“UnitedHealthcare is grateful for the opportunity to work with the Burgundy and area residents to build this playground and help ensure that children have an opportunity to play and exercise outdoors,” said Tom Quirk, CEO of UnitedHealthcare of Texas. “We want to do all we can to help Dallas-area children live healthier lives.”

For more information about the benefits of volunteering and to find local opportunities to get involved, visit DoGoodLiveWell.org. Follow @DoGoodLiveWell on Twitter or "like" Do Good. Live Well. on Facebook.

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 an office in San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.

About UnitedHealthcareUnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. UnitedHealthcare serves more than 38 million people and is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.

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