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DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV):

WHAT:  

More than 675 volunteers from DIRECTV, including employees, dealers and partners, along with over 100 volunteers from the Nesbit Elementary PTA, organizers from KaBOOM! and residents of the Tucker community will join forces on Monday, April 16 to build a new playground at Nesbit Elementary. Funded by DIRECTV, the playground is the largest ever constructed by KaBOOM!, which has led the building of more than 2,000 playgrounds across North America. The new playground’s design is based on drawings created by Nesbit students who participated in a Design Day event in February.

 

  WHY: Today’s kids spend less time playing outside than any previous generation in part because only 1-in-5 children lives within walking distance of a park or playground. This play deficit is having profound consequences for kids physically, socially and cognitively. Children need a place to play every day in order to be active and healthy, something KaBOOM! has been committed to since 1996.   The new playground will provide more than 1,700 children who attend Nesbit Elementary with a safe place to play. Currently, the school does not have an adequate playground to accommodate its student body.   The playground is the second built by KaBOOM! and DIRECTV, and one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2012.   In addition to the community-built playground, the new play area will also include Imagination Playground in a Cart™ – a breakthrough playspace concept designed by architect David Rockwell to encourage child-directed, unstructured free play. With reconfigurable loose parts, Imagination Playground in a Cart™ allows children to constantly change their environment and design their own course of play.   WHEN:

Monday, April 16

9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Kick off ceremony and volunteer deployment

11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Best viewing of playground construction

1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Final construction phase and adjustments 3:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate new play area (Note: all times approximate)   WHERE: Nesbit Elementary School 6575 Cherokee Drive Tucker, GA 30084   WHO: More than 800 volunteers from DIRECTV and the local community   VISUALS: Before and after shots of the site Volunteers assembling brightly colored playground equipment Volunteers mixing and moving more than 70,000 pounds of concrete by hand Volunteers moving 171,720 square feet of safety surfacing by hand Ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate the playground  

About Nesbit Elementary

Nesbit Elementary is located at 6575 Cherokee Drive in Tucker, Georgia. It is a school in the Meadowcreek Cluster of Gwinnett County Public Schools. The school opened its doors to 1,129 students in the fall of 1993. Today it serves more than 1,700 students from 78 different countries. Nesbit Elementary strives to be a school that provides a creative, challenging learning environment that encourages high expectations for success for all students through the development and use of 21st Century Skills. It seeks to help students develop creative skills which will carry them toward new ideas, new experiences, and new challenges.

About Gwinnett County Public Schools

Gwinnett County Public Schools, located in the metro Atlanta area, is the largest school system in Georgia and continues to grow. The school district serves more than 162,000 students. In fact, one of every five Gwinnett County residents is a GCPS student. The school system is diverse both ethnically and socioeconomically, with nearly 53% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. A high-achieving district, Gwinnett County Public Schools, along with its students and teachers, continues to earn recognition. The Gwinnett school system is the winner of the 2010 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the country’s largest education award honoring school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement.

About DIRECTV

DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV) is one of the world’s leading providers of digital television entertainment services delivering a premium video experience through state-of-the-art technology, unmatched programming and industry leading customer service to 32 million customers in the U.S. and Latin America. In the U.S., DIRECTV offers its 19.9 million customers access to more than 170 HD channels and Dolby-Digital® 5.1 theater-quality sound, access to exclusive sports programming such as NFL SUNDAY TICKET™, Emmy- award winning technology and higher customer satisfaction than the leading cable companies for 11 years running. DIRECTV Latin America, through its subsidiaries and affiliated companies in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries, leads the pay-TV category in technology, programming and service, delivering an unrivaled digital television experience to 12 million customers. DIRECTV sports and entertainment properties include three Regional Sports Networks (Northwest, Rocky Mountain and Pittsburgh) as well as a 60 percent interest in Game Show Network. For the most up-to-date information on DIRECTV, please visit www.directv.com.

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 89,000 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.

Imagination Playground LLC

Imagination Playground is a breakthrough playspace concept conceived and designed by acclaimed architect David Rockwell to encourage child-directed, unstructured free play. Rockwell and his firm, Rockwell Group, have partnered with KaBOOM!, the leading national non-profit organization dedicated to bringing play to kids everywhere. The mission of this partnership is to inspire children’s inherent ability to dream and create by bringing Imagination Playground to communities across the country. With a focus on loose parts, Imagination Playground offers a changing array of elements that allows children to constantly reconfigure their environment and to design their own course of play. Giant foam blocks, mats, wagons, fabric and crates overflow with creative potential for children to play, dream, build and explore endless possibilities. For more information, please visit www.imaginationplayground.com or call 1.866.986.5551.