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150 Delta volunteers join KaBOOM! to offer gift of play to children at Atlanta Mission

DAL | October 20, 2014

Delta people help build play facility at Atlanta Mission - My Sister's House during annual Hands on Atlanta Day

ATLANTA, Oct. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 150 Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) volunteers joined KaBOOM! organizers to build a playground in one day at Atlanta Mission – My Sister's House, a shelter for homeless women and children in midtown Atlanta. The event helped kick off the 25th anniversary year of Hands On Atlanta, a local organization that encourages volunteers to pitch in to help meet the pressing needs of the Atlanta community.

Delta employees at KaBOOM! build in Atlanta

Saturday's build was Delta's first project with KaBOOM! in Atlanta. Delta has previously built two playgrounds with KaBOOM! in the Seattle area and one each in Los Angeles and Minneapolis/St. Paul.

"Delta is Atlanta's hometown airline, and Delta people are proud to come out on Hands On Atlanta Day to work alongside organizations that give back so much to the community like KaBOOM! and the Atlanta Mission," said Tad Hutcheson, vice president-Community Affairs for Delta. "This playground will bring more than 740 children who live at My Sister's House each year one step closer to having the childhood they deserve by providing a safe place to play and stay physically active."

More volunteers from the local community joined the Delta team to mix and pour concrete, shovel mulch and assemble a playground structure in just six hours as part of the one-day project.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the close of the project, Hutcheson presented a check for $10,000 from Delta to the Atlanta Mission to help the organization with long-term maintenance of the playground and to support other services it provides.

Through its Force for Global Good, Delta works to promote an improved quality of life for everyone in the communities it serves. Delta's more than 27,000 Atlanta-based employees are active and involved members of the community, building playgrounds for children in partnership with KaBOOM!, collecting donations of money and life-saving blood for the American Red Cross, building homes with Habitat for Humanity, teaching financial literacy to students at Junior Achievement of Georgia and walking in support of Atlanta Pride and the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, among a host of other projects throughout the year.

Delta Air Lines serves nearly 165 million customers each year. This year, Delta was named the 2014 Airline of the Year by Air Transport World magazine and was named to FORTUNE magazine's 50 Most Admired Companies, in addition to being named the most admired airline for the third time in four years. With an industry-leading global network, Delta and the Delta Connection carriers offer service to 318 destinations in 57 countries on six continents. Headquartered in Atlanta, Delta employs nearly 80,000 employees worldwide and operates a mainline fleet of more than 700 aircraft. The airline is a founding member of the SkyTeam global alliance and participates in the industry's leading trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia as well as a newly formed joint venture with Virgin Atlantic. Including its worldwide alliance partners, Delta offers customers more than 15,000 daily flights, with key hubs and markets including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-JFK, New York-LaGuardia, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Tokyo-Narita. Delta has invested billions of dollars in airport facilities, global products, services and technology to enhance the customer experience in the air and on the ground. Additional information is available on delta.com, Twitter @Delta, Google.com/+Delta, Facebook.com/delta and Delta's blog takingoff.delta.com.

KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to the bold new goal of ensuring that all children, particularly the 16 million American children living in poverty, get the balanced and active play they need to thrive. KaBOOM! has been a powerful champion for play since its founding in 1996, working with partners to build, improve and open more than 15,000 playgrounds, engage more than 1,000,000 volunteers and serve more than 6,600,000 children. KaBOOM! creates and catalyzes great places to play, inspires, empowers and leads play advocates, and educates and elevates the societal conversation about the importance of play in children's lives. For more information, visit kaboom.org/act or follow the conversation on why #playmatters at twitter.com/kaboom or facebook.com/kaboom.

Hands On Atlanta tackles Greater Atlanta's most pressing needs by igniting a passion and creating lifelong community volunteers. Founded in 1989 by a group of concerned citizens, Hands On Atlanta has mobilized more than 250,000 volunteers to more than 4,000 nonprofits and schools throughout the Greater Atlanta area. Hands On Atlanta is an affiliate of the HandsOn Network, the volunteer-activation division of Points of Light Institute. More information is available at handsonatlanta.org.