A glorious day to plant trees…and eat cupcakes
Today was the Greenway’s annual Tree Planting Kick off Event. It my first, given I am still fairly new to the organization. Let me tell you this…it was magical…so many great people of all ages lending a hand to planting thousands of native trees and shrubs at Issaquah’s Squak Valley Park North. This park was recently acquired and is currently under restoration. Issaquah Creek runs through it and it’s important to provide trees and shrubs to the surrounding area in order to protect the salmon running through the stream. We had corporate groups, local students, church groups, families, individuals all getting dirty and planting under the beautiful October sun. It started out cold but the sun broke through and warmed everyone up. Luckily for us, we had some great sponsors who provided coffee (Starbucks), bagels (Blazin’ Bagels) and cupcakes (Cupcake Royale)- I thoroughly enjoyed the salted caramel mini cupcake I had). REI was there too handing out shirts to volunteers. I wandered around talking to volunteers and taking pictures. I ran into a friend of mine who I didn’t know was going to come volunteer. He’s a local arborist who felt he needed to “give back” by planting trees in the Greenway because part of his job is cutting trees down. We also had the folks from KMTT the Mountain, Carter Subaru and the Seattle Storm out lending their planting talents. As I looked around at all of these wonderful volunteers, most of them were smiling and laughing as they dug up dirt. I got a chance to talk to the former owner of the property who came down from his new home on Orcas Island. He was very impressed by all the restorative work being done to his former family homestead. He got a chance to share some stories over coffee and cupcakes. It was lovely to hear him talk of his grandfather working the land way back when.
A very cool Greenway event indeed!
