Contact: Rose Getch
National Gardening Association
(800) 538-7476, ext. 129
Rose@garden.org
Jonathan Taylor
Starz Media
(818) 748-4032
jonathan.taylor@starz.com
South Burlington, VT (September 28, 2007) - The National Gardening Association (NGA), creator of Kidsgardening.org, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Starz Media, and BolderMedia and their animated children's television show ″Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!″ which will encourage preschool children to explore the virtues of gardening.
″Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!″ revolves around Wubbzy and his two friends, Widget and Walden, who live in the town of Wuzzleburg. The three are constantly having hilarious adventures that reinforce the importance of friendship. Since it began airing on Nick Jr. and Noggin in August 2006, Wubbzy has been a hit on the air, online and in the international television market as well. Nickelodeon has just recently renewed the show for a second season.
Over the next 18 months, NGA, Starz Media/Bolder Media will craft a series of step-by-step lessons for young kids, which will be housed on the www.kidsgardening.org and www.wubbzy.com websites. These activities (covering such topics as planting seeds, identifying plant parts and creating a fruit salad with all the colors of the rainbow, among others) will rollout weekly on the websites beginning in January, and run through mid April. Additionally, Starz/Bolder and NGA will partner on creating two ″Wuzzleburg Gardens″ that will be cared for by local communities. The gardens will be built in April 2008, and a ″harvest″ party will be held in late August/early September, celebrating the first years' efforts. The locations of these gardens will be announced later.
Kidsgardening.org is an interactive hub where teachers, parents, and community organizers find grants for youth gardens, quality teaching resources, and child-tested project ideas.
Mike Metallo, President of NGA and KidsGardening.org knows that young children learn by watching the adults in their lives and take cues from their favorite characters. ″The charm of Wubbzy, and his adventuresome way of speaking to preschool children, coupled with the solid educational and horticultural expertise of NGA staff, is a combination that will give the current generation of preschoolers a jump start into gardening and healthy life choices.″
″We were looking for a unique yet fun way to spread the Wubbzy message about the importance of community, and friendship,″ says Amorette Jones, EVP of Worldwide Marketing for Starz Media. ″With more and more families concerned about environmental issues, it seemed very natural to form an alliance designed to expand the reach of the NGA message to families with pre-schoolers. We are particularly excited to launch this campaign, and watch it grow over the next few years.″
Sarah Pounders, educational specialist for the National Gardening Association explains, ″It's never too early to get kids excited about gardens.″ According to a recent research study about the Seeds of Learning program in Nebraska, published in the journal Applied Environmental Education and Communications, ″…when young children are participating in gardening they are communicating their knowledge about the world to others, conveying (and learning to process and manage) emotions, and developing important skills (e.g., initiative, self-confidence, literacy, math, science skills) that will help them be more successful in school and better navigate the world.″
″Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!″ supports social skills, self-awareness and humor as a coping skill. Although their world is more fanciful and imaginative than our own, Wubbzy faces the same interpersonal and developmental issues that typical preschoolers face. They learn how they fit into the group, how to understand their own feelings and those of others, and how to get along with one another.
The show is enriched with Wubbspeak - a fun, unique language often featuring alliteration and already catching on with young children. In Wuzzleburg, Wubbzy's favorite pastimes include chasing flutterflys and playing kickity-kick ball or hippity-hopscotch. ″Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!″ videos have been streamed more than 20 million times so far, and there have been nearly 40 million Wubbzy game plays since January 2007. ″Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!″ is produced by Bolder Media, in association with Starz Media. For more info, visit www.wubbzy.com
About the National Gardening Association
Founded in 1973, the National Gardening Association is a national nonprofit leader in plant-based education, respected for its award-winning Web sites and newsletters, grants and curricula for youth gardens, and research for the lawn and garden industry. NGA's mission is to advance the personal, community, and educational benefits of gardening by supporting gardeners and teachers with information and resources. To learn more, please visit www.garden.org.
About Starz Media, LLC
Starz Media, LLC, is a programming production and distribution company operating worldwide. It includes the Film Roman, Anchor Bay Entertainment, and Manga Entertainment brands. Its units create animated and live-action programming -- including theatrical films -- and programming created under contract for other media companies. It distributes that programming, and programming acquired from outside producers, through home video retailers, theaters, broadcasters, ad supported and premium television channels, and Internet and wireless video distributors in the US and internationally. Starz Media is an operating unit of Starz, LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation that is attributed to Liberty Capital Group.
About Bolder Media
Bolder Media for Boys and Girls is a joint venture formed by veteran producers Susan Miller and Fred Seibert for the development of books, television series, and movies for young boys and girls. Bob Boyle is the creator and executive producer of the series. Susan Miller of Bolder Media and Mixed Media Group and Fred Seibert of Bolder Media and Frederator Studios, are also executive producers on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy.