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100% of author proceeds benefit KaBOOM!

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Press Coverage
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Press Inquiries

Press Coverage

spacer “Darell Hammond building kids’ playgrounds”
KaBOOM! founder Darell Hammond uses playgrounds to teach kids life lessons, as CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
Watch now.

spacer “Darell Hammond gives kids a reason to smile”
Reported by Jenna Bush Hager, the segment profiled our 2,000 playground builds and our CEO and Founder Darell Hammond’s bestselling book.
Watch now.

“Scaling Play”
Stanford Social Innovation Review
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing,” observed George Bernard Shaw. But what happens when children themselves play less? Read more.

“5 Minutes for Books: Playground Dreams with ‘KaBOOM!’ “
Kirkus Reviews
I’m lucky to live in an area of northern Colorado that is family friendly. There are several large playgrounds with many amenities, and every school has a playground that’s open to the public. Read more.

“Off The Shelf”
Philanthropy News Digest
Anyone who spent his or her childhood summers running, jumping, or sliding at a neighborhood playground will be drawn to KaBOOM!. Read more.

“Darell Hammond’s ‘KaBOOM!’ “
Philanthropy Files
Recently, I was invited to an event at the home of Atlantic Media’s CEO David Bradley and his wife Katherine. Read more.

“1989 Mooseheart Grad Darell Hammond Tells Current Students: ‘There Are No Limits’”
Mooseheart.org
By any definition, Darell Hammond has been very successful since he graduated from Mooseheart in 1989. Read more.

“Recommended reads”
MomMD
This powerful, uplifting memoir details the vision and efforts of Darell Hammond, the man behind the national nonprofit KaBOOM!. Read more.

“From Mission to Movement: ‘KaBOOM!’ and the Renaissance of Play in America”
The Huffington Post
Darell Hammond was born almost 200 years after the man who must have been his past life embodiment: Johnny Appleseed. Read more.

“From a Childhood Tragedy, a Movement to Build Safe Play Spaces Finds Firm Ground”
The Chronicle of Philanthropy
The nonprofit group KaBoom began in 1995 when Darrell Hammond read an article about two children in Washington who died of suffocation in an abandoned car on a hot day because there was nowhere for them to play. Read more.

“Front + Center”
Take Part
Sometimes you need a break from changing the world. Front + Center is TakePart’s monthly guide to the books, films, albums, TV shows and events making an impact right now. Read more.

“Darell Hammond wants to ignite a KaBOOM! in building public playgrounds”
The Christian Science Monitor
Darell Hammond, founder of KaBOOM!, talks about why kids need unstructured playtime and efforts to map ‘play deserts’ where playgrounds need to be built or renovated. The key to it all: self-organizing local citizen groups. Read more.

“Making Play a Priority — The Story of KaBOOM!”
Ellen Galinsky, The Huffington Post
There is a sentence a fifth of the way into the book, KaBOOM! How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play by Darell Hammond that says it all. He writes: “If you haven’t figured it out by now, when someone says no to me, I tend to dig in and figure out how to make it a yes.” Read more.

“Darell Hammond: 5 tips from his new book on how KaBOOM! is resurrecting play”
Rachel Signer, Dowser
Most adults reflect fondly on the days when long hours spent at school were punctuated by a sunny and loud recess break. Playtime is an essential component in a child’s development, providing venues for creativity, allowing space to socialize informally, and giving opportunity to let loose energy. Read more.

Press Inquiries

Contact:
Stephanie Bowen, KaBOOM!
T. 202.464.6186 / sbowen@kaboom.org

Danielle Lynn, RODALE Books
T. 212.808.1621 / Danielle.Lynn@Rodale.com

KaBOOM! Founder and CEO Darell Hammond
Inspires Current and Future Social Entrepreneurs with Lessons from his Journey from Group Home to Social Innovator

New York Times Best Seller Now Available in Paperback!

KABOOM!: A MOVEMENT TO SAVE PLAY

At just four years old, KaBOOM! Founder and CEO Darell Hammond was taken to a group home with his seven siblings outside of Chicago, where they grew up after his father abruptly abandoned the family. It was in this home, Hammond writes, that he learned about kindness, generosity, and community service.

In 1995, Hammond read an article in The Washington Post about two young children who died after becoming trapped in an abandoned car while playing. At the time, there were no safe places for children to play in their community, less than two miles from the U.S. Capitol. Hammond changed that—he brought the community together to build a playground in their honor and at just 24 years old, started KaBOOM! from his Washington, DC apartment.

Now available in paperback, Hammond’s inspiring story, KaBOOM!: A Movement to Save Play, (Rodale Books; September 18th ; ISBN: 978-1-60961-924-4; $14.99; Paperback; also available in e-book) is the tale of a man and a movement, both born out of tragedy. This book tells one social entrepreneur’s inspiring journey of going from growing up in a group home to founding the national nonprofit dedicated to saving play for America’s children. He instructs readers on how to take action in their own communities with tangible steps to make a difference.

During the last 16 years Hammond has led efforts to combine corporate dollars with community muscle to build an innovative $27 million a year non-profit, construct more than 2,100 playgrounds across the country and bring play to the lives of more than 5.5 million children. He explains that today’s children have less time to play than any previous generation. Building playgrounds solves two problems: the play deficit and the need for community. “Imagine this empty lot becoming a great place for the community to gather and congregate. It all starts with passionate people coming together for a singular purpose,” describes Hammond.

In KaBOOM!: A Movement to Save Play, Hammond tells how his quest to save play for America’s children has inspired a network of corporate leaders to fund the planning and construction of play spaces that transform abandoned, often condemned spaces into amazing playgrounds that become community hubs for years to come. Along the way corporate innovators from the likes of eBay, Dr Pepper Snapple Group and Kraft Foods, have seen Hammond’s vision and committed millions of dollars to the movement. Even in this tough economy KaBOOM! has gained support from industry leaders in sports and entertainment and across political parties.

In the book he looks back at how he:

  • Persuaded 290 companies to invest millions of dollars and employee volunteerism in programs that have provided playgrounds to communities and children in all 50 states through a model built on public/private partnerships.
  • Built an organization that reaches communities around the globe through the online and open-sourced Do-It-Yourself playground building tool that shares the secrets of the KaBOOM! community playground-build model for free.
  • Learned incredible and valuable lessons along his entrepreneurial journey: the importance of taking risks, tapping into one’s passion to create change, and nurturing talent from all sectors for social good.
  • Created the innovative and sustainable revenue model for this audacious-dreaming national non-profit and leveraged the successful hands on, community-based service model into a vibrant online community taking grass-roots action on behalf of our kids.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DARELL HAMMOND is the Founder and CEO of KaBOOM!, an innovative nonprofit based in Washington, DC that is saving play by making sure there is a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Founded out of Darell’s apartment in 1996, KaBOOM! has raised $200 million, rallied a million volunteers, led the hands-on construction of more than 2,100 playgrounds, and inspired a movement for the child’s right to play. In 2011, Darell was recognized as a US Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and was included in Forbes Magazine’s first-ever list of Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs. Darell lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Kate Becker. One hundred percent of the author proceeds from the book benefit KaBOOM!.

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