Rotary tree planting project greens up Veterans Way

Details

Published on Monday, May 28, 2018

Photos by Christine Waddell

Above 1: Members of Neepawa Rotary Club and NACI Peer Helpers Group and the NACI Garden Club get ready to start planting.

Above 2: Another tree is about to be planted.

By Wayne Hildebrand

Neepawa Banner & Press

The Neepawa Rotary Club coordinated a tree planting project to help “green up” Veterans Way walking path on the west side of Neepawa.  A total of 25 Neepawa Rotarians and students from Neepawa Area Collegiate Institute (NACI) combined efforts to plant 20 two metre high trees along the path.

Partnership in planting

The tree planting initiative was a partnership project involving Neepawa Rotary, NACI, the Town of Neepawa, Whitemud Watershed Conservation District, and Manitoba Hydro.  The Neepawa Rotary club coordinated the project as part of a Rotary International initiative to plant trees in support of world peace.   Rotary supports the concept of “act locally and think globally” and engaging youth.  The NACI students and teachers who participated were from the Peer Helpers Group and the NACI Horticultural Club.

The Town of Neepawa and Whitemud Watershed Conservation District provided tremendous support to the project.  Their staff helped with planning the planting site, preparing the site, selecting the tree species, demonstrating proper tree planting technique and supervising the planting.  They did an excellent job.  Manitoba Hydro provided financial assistance to purchase the trees.

Four species of Manitoba hardy trees were planted, including Discover Elm (disease resistant), Black Walnut, Manitoba Maple and American Linden (a basswood).

Twenty Minutes

It was a lot of fun.  With a lot of help and good site preparation, it only took 20 minutes to plant 20 two meter high trees.  Neepawa Rotary Club would like to thank all the partners for making this project a success.