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

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

CARSON, Calif. (Thursday, February 14, 2013) - 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 2013 Reading Garden Challenge, a joint initiative of the LA Galaxy Foundation and The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation, to encourage literacy and highlight Earth Day. For the fifth 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, 2013) as part of their literacy efforts by reading (or being read to) Earth Day-themed books for 30 minutes a day for 30 days (February 14-March 15, 2013) and log their minutes. The school that logs the most reading minutes will have a Reading Garden built at their school. The second place finishing school will receive a visit by one (1) LA Galaxy player and the third place finishing school will receive a visit by the Galaxy Street Team, Star Squad and mascot Cozmo.

In case of a tie, the schools with the most Reading Garden Challenge reading minutes logged will be entered into a random drawing conducted by the LA Galaxy Foundation and The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation. The winning school will have a Reading Garden built at their school by the LA Galaxy Foundation and The Home Depot Center Charitable Foundation.

Schools interested in participating are encouraged to review the challenge criteria and download the poster guidelines at here. Past winners include Chapman Elementary School, 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 Chapman Elementary School, please visit the About/Charitable Foundation section of The Home Depot Center's official website, 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.

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:

Michael Roth // mroth@aegworldwide.com
Cassandra Zebisch // czebisch@aegworldwide.com