New Schoolyard Under Construction For Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 - Zog Sports Makes A Donation To New Out2Play Playground

PS/IS 217 Schoolyard Construction From RIGAND

The Roosevelt Island Gifted & Talented Class Blog reports on new construction going on at Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 schoolyard:

... The crew is currently dismantling the old equipment and the new playground should replace it soon! Mini-baseball and soccer fields, basketball court, designated areas for chalk play and other activities, and more...

Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. President Steve Shane forwards this letter he received from Zog Sports CEO Robert Herzog concerning the new schoolyard and Zog's participation in Roosevelt Island Health & Fitness Day.

The ZogSports team and volunteer participants are very excited to assist with the Roosevelt Island Health and Fitness Day this Saturday, May 15. We will be organizing and running a sports‐focused obstacle course for kids. We are looking forward to spending the day volunteering and interacting with the Roosevelt Island community.

We have some other very exciting news that we wanted to share with you and your team. We are pleased to announce our $25,000 donation to Out2Play to help sponsor the redevelopment of the playground at P.S. 217 on Roosevelt Island. The funding will enable Out2Play to transform the school’s empty, asphalt schoolyard into a safe, stimulating and developmentally beneficial playspace. Construction for the playground will take 6‐8 weeks over the summer and P.S. 217 will have a completed playspace by the start of next school year. We selected this project on Roosevelt Island because of our commitment to support, respect and improve the communities in which we play.

We are thrilled to work with Out2Play to help provide an area where the Roosevelt Island schoolchildren can get outside and be active. To date, Out2Play has built 80 playgrounds and plans to build 40 more this year. ZogSports lauds Out2Play for its mission to keep NYC public school kids active and healthy by providing safe and fun playspaces. We look forward to the fall for the Grand Opening celebration with the school, community, public sponsors of the project and ZogSports participants.

Mr. Shane also adds that Zog is:

A very good supporter of the Island.

What is Out2Play? According to Crains New York Business:

...Out2Play, which was started four years ago by Columbia MBA graduate Andrea Wenner, has already raised $20 million and built 80 playgrounds at New York schools, transforming nearly 1 million square feet of unused lots into play spaces. By contracting out and building a number of playgrounds at once, and devoting 97% of its annual budget to the projects, Out2Play has been able to work at a fast pace. The DOE funding will help Ms. Wenner achieve her organization's goal of transforming 150 empty schoolyards.

“Every day there are new studies that point to the fact that children need more opportunities for physical activity,” said Ms. Wenner, executive director of Out2Play. “This money is going to go a long way in ensuring that the children who come through these schools every year will have a place to be active, to play and to have fun.”

Here is the design schematic from Out2Play for Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 new schoolyard.

Click Here For Larger Image From Out2Play

PS/IS 217 also has some indoor sports including this basketball game between students and teachers.

You Tube Video of PS/IS 217 Student/Teacher Basketball Game