Duke Energy and Toyota partner to Paint Playground at Newport Head Start

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COVINGTON, KY. – Spring is here, the sun shines a little brighter and two prominent corporations have come together to help give a facelift to a very busy playground at Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission’s Head Start Center at Ninth and Brighton Streets in Newport.

This project was high on the priority list for the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission who operates six Head Start locations for residents of Boone, Campbell, Kenton and Pendleton counties. “Our agency seeks to provide quality services to our children and families in healthy, safe environments. Quality facilities are vital to that goal.” said Joan Menning, a 30 year veteran of NKCAC and Head Start Director.

Duke Energy’s Business Women’s Network and Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s Women’s Leadership Forum quickly responded to the call for help through the nkyHELPS.org volunteer website. “Listing the project on the nkyHELPS.org website exposed our need for volunteers to thousands of people who otherwise may not have known that we needed help”, said Karen Bishop NKCAC’s Public Information Director. Both Duke and Toyota have a strong commitment to women's leadership development. Typical activities of both groups include mentoring programs, networking events and community outreach efforts like the Paint the Playground project. “We teamed with Toyota’s Women’s Leadership Forum to bring women of like minds together and help make a difference in the community”, said Kim Glenn Supervisor of District Design with Duke Energy.

Giving the urban playground a much needed coat of paint was the original project scope. But these two dynamic women’s associations from Duke and Toyota saw a much bigger picture. Not only did they fund the project, they decided to paint the playground equipment and fence and generously included restriping the bike path, adding flower boxes, adding a canopy to the children’s playhouse, replacing the downspouts on a storage shed, cleaning the classroom tables, chairs and carpets, donating a large canopy to be used on the playground for shade, adding a security camera and painting a Winnie the Pooh mural in the children’s multi-purpose room. Duke also held an employee toy drive while Toyota held an employee book drive to add to the children’s classroom experience. This is all great news for the 180 children who use the playground each day.

"This generous gift from Duke Energy and Toyota will help sustain an important piece of our early childhood education program and help improve the children's lives in the process," said Florence Tandy Executive Director of NKCAC.

The Paint the Playground project will be held on Saturday, May 17th at 9:00am at the Newport Head Start Center located at 502 West 9th Street in Newport. Cake and ice-cream will be served at the 2:00pm ribbon-cutting ceremony to unveil the new playground to the children.

Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission provides low income families crisis assistance and support with housing, early childhood education, energy assistance, job training and healthy relationship education. This support helps families become self reliant and economically independent. The Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission’s Head Start program serves 444 three and four year old children with low income or children with disabilities. The 42 year old Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission operates in eight (8) counties in Kentucky. For additional information visit our website at www.nkcac.org.