The Los Angeles Rams teamed up with American Airlines to build a playground at Bennett-Kew Elementary school. This is the second playground the airlines built in the Inglewood area, according to Suzanne Boda, senior vice president of Los Angeles for American Airlines.
“A lot of employees live here, LAX is the neighbor to Inglewood,” she said. “We’re really happy to be able to give back to the kids in the community and they’re our future.”
The children joyously played on the playground and interacted with the Rams mascot, Rampage, after the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Inglewood Unified School district board president Margret Evans is happy to partner with the corporations.
“It’s all about the kids in the first place,” Evans said. “We’re constantly trying to improve our schools and do more for the kids, not just with playgrounds, but the facilities as a whole.”
The equipment to create the playground was provided by Carters Kids, non-profit organization that build playgrounds to promote fitness for youth. The organization started in 2006.
“I’m a big believer that parks are needed everywhere and kids need to be kids everywhere,” said Carter Oosterhouse, founder of Carter’s Kids. “The idea is to fight childhood obesity, but at the end of the day, it’s just letting kids be kids.”
Volunteers from the Rams and American Airlines helped create the playground.
“The school district is responsible for making sure that the site is all prepped when we get here,” said Quay Chilcott, executive director of Carter’s Kids. “We can build the whole thing in a day.”
Employees from different departments in American Airlines came together to help the Rams staff build the playground. American Airlines flight attendant and playground volunteer Michelle Campbell noted that erecting the playground took the volunteers seven hours.
“We assembled all the playground equipment, we got to lay out a ton of mulch, which was definitely a tedious project,” Campbell said. “Everyone worked really well together.”
As the Rams get closer to moving into their state-of-the-art stadium, they wanted to ensure that the youth in Inglewood have cutting edge facilities as well.
“The goal is to make sure that we’re not just planting roots down on the stadium and on our 300 acres,” said Rams COO Kevin Demoff. “We’re expanding in the community and developing not only that next generation of Rams fans but the next generation of scholars and athletes and musicians and artists and really investing in the Inglewood school system.”
