Home Depot Center News

The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation, Galaxy Foundation and The Home Depot to Give Local Elementary Schools the Chance to Earn a Custom-Built Reading Garden

CARSON, Calif. (Thursday, January 26, 2012) - The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation, in partnership with the LA Galaxy Foundation, is inviting Carson, Compton, Gardena, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Lakewood, Lawndale, Lomita, Long Beach, Lynwood, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, San Pedro and Torrance area elementary schools to participate in the 2012 Reading Garden Challenge, a joint initiative with The Home Depot. For the fourth consecutive year, the foundations will provide a custom-built Reading Garden at a local elementary school, designed to give children an enjoyable, outdoor environment in which they grow a life-long love of reading.

The Reading Garden Challenge calls for schools and students (grades K-5) to focus on Earth Day (April 22, 2012) as part of their literacy efforts by reading Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and creating 8.5\" x 11\" posters based on one of the following environmentally-friendly themes: Protecting the Environment, Keeping the Planet Green and Recycling.

The top five schools with the most posters submitted reflecting the themes will be entered into a random drawing conducted by The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation, the LA Galaxy Foundation and The Home Depot to have a Reading Garden built at their school. All students who participate in the challenge will be rewarded with a Reading Garden Challenge Certificate.

Schools interested in participating are encouraged to review the challenge criteria and download the poster guidelines at here: www.homedepotcenter.com/readinggarden. Past winners include President Avenue Elementary School, Stephen C. Foster Elementary School and Carson's Leapwood Avenue Elementary School.

For more information on the Reading Garden Challenge and to view images from last year's Reading Garden at Leapwood Avenue Elementary School, please visit the Foundation section of The Home Depot Center's official website at homedepotcenter.com. For additional information about the Challenge and how you can participate, please contact Tamala Lewis, The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation & Community Affairs Director, at (310) 630-2053.

The 2012 Reading Garden will be built with proceeds from last year's How Suite It Is! fundraiser, presented by Gentleman Jack and sponsored by The Home Depot, Code 4 Media Group and Watson Land Company.

About The Home Depot Center

The Home Depot Center is southern California's home of world-class competition and training facilities for amateur, Olympic, collegiate and professional athletes. The $150-million, privately-financed Home Depot Center is owned by AEG and operated by AEG Facilities, an international sports, entertainment and venue organization that works with more than 100 of the world's most elite facilities across the globe. The Home Depot Center is a 125-acre multi-sport complex that sits on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) and features an 8,000-seat tennis stadium, a 27,000-seat stadium for soccer and other athletic competitions and outdoor concerts, a 2,000-seat facility for track & field and a 2,450-seat indoor Velodrome for track cycling. The Home Depot Center is home to two Major League Soccer teams, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA. Named an Official U.S. Olympic Training Site, The Home Depot Center is also home of the United States Tennis Association's (USTA) High Performance Training Center, the national team training headquarters for the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) and Athletes' Performance, an international training center for elite and professional athletes. For more information, please visit www.homedepotcenter.com.

Contact:

Alison Groendal Salcedo // asalcedo@homedepotcenter.com