PECO Boathouse Bash Honors One-Year Anniversary of Historic Relighting of Boathouse Row & Kicks Off Philadelphia's 2006 Sunoco Welcome America! Celebration

PECO Boathouse Bash Honors One-Year Anniversary of Historic Relighting of Boathouse Row & Kicks Off Philadelphia's 2006 Sunoco Welcome America! Celebration

PHILADELPHIA, June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- A 10-minute light show, 3-minute fireworks display and a free public festival will highlight the PECO Boathouse Bash on Tuesday, June 27th - an evening of fun celebrating the one-year anniversary of PECO's historic relighting of Boathouse Row, and officially kicking off the city's 2006 Sunoco Welcome America! festival. Free festivities including music, make-and-take activities and games for kids, giveaways and more begin at 7 p.m. along Martin Luther King Drive. The lightshow along Boathouse Row will begin at 9 p.m. followed by fireworks atop the boathouses from Lemon Hill.

The celebration honors the one-year anniversary of the completion of The PECO Challenge ... Relighting Boathouse Row. A public fundraising effort spearheaded by PECO, the Challenge raised more than $250,000 from public and private funders as well as significant in-kind donations to help relight Boathouse Row with LED technology. The project was a joint effort of PECO, the Fairmount Park Commission, the Schuylkill Navy of Philadelphia (comprising ten rowing clubs on Boathouse Row), and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 98.

The celebration also provides the perfect opening to Philadelphia's 2006 Sunoco Welcome America! festival. From June 27th to July 4th, the Sunoco Welcome America! festival and the city's world-class patriotic and historic tourism venues will offer eight days of family-oriented entertainment, highlighting the best in American music, food and fun. From gospel to salsa, opera to pop, and jazz to rhythm & blues, the city is alive with concerts, street festivals, history lessons, and July 4th perennials - great food, patriotic parades and spectacular fireworks. The finale of the weeklong summer event is the July 4th Southwest Airlines Parade and the Sunoco Sweet Sounds of Liberty Concert, featuring R&B powerhouse Lionel Richie, and 2004 American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino; the concert is followed by one of the most spectacular fireworks displays in the nation.

First installed as part of Philadelphia's bicentennial celebration in 1976, the original lights along Boathouse Row were turned off for the last time on January 6, 2005. The new LED system was unveiled on June 30, 2005, again returning the popular white outline to Boathouse Row. Since that time, the pristine white lights along the boathouses have temporarily changed color a few times to honor key events in the region including Live8 and the city's July 4th celebration, breast cancer awareness month, and the Girl Scouts Take the Lead luncheon. In addition to being safer and requiring less maintenance, the new system is more energy efficient, saving Fairmount Park about $57,000 a year in bulb replacement and energy costs.

Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC). PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 470,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. In 2005, the company delivered 38.7 million megawatt-hours (Mwh) of electricity and 85.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas to residential, business and institutional customers. PECO's energy delivery services generated $4.91 billion in revenue for Exelon. Founded in 1881, PECO is one of the Greater Philadelphia Region's most active corporate citizens, providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts and culture, education, environmental, economic development and community programs and organizations.

Sunoco Welcome America! is a non-profit organization charged with producing the Sunoco Welcome America! festival, the official celebration of the Independence Day holiday for the City of Philadelphia. The festival draws participants from all over the country to a variety of family-friendly concerts and attractions. Annual events draw nearly 1 million people to Philadelphia. All events are free to the public.

Contact: Cathy Engel, PECO
215-841-4492 or 215-841-5555

Barbara Grant, Sunoco Welcome America!
215-683-2211 or 215-520-8849

Source: PECO

CONTACT: Cathy Engel of PECO, +1-215-841-4492, or +1-215-841-5555; or
Barbara Grant of Sunoco Welcome America!, +1-215-683-2211, or +1-215-520-8849

Web site: http://www.peco.com/

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