Project type: Million Tree Challenge
Year: 2020
Season: Fall
In celebration of National Forest Week, ReForest London hosted a special business planting event to kick off the week at Meadowgate Park.
This planting event was different as it offered a lower $250 price point to sponsor trees, and several small businesses took advantage of this. We know that many small businesses are not able to sponsor the larger amounts that are usually associated with a park naturalization planting so we were happy to be able to offer this different approach.
The weather was lovely and it was a great day for planting but with new COVID-19 restrictions on outdoor group sizes in place, a smaller group of 25 people were able to plant that day. A few other planting times were added in the following weeks to make sure that all the trees would get planted as planned in this beautiful, large southeast London park.
TLC Landscaping was a sponsor for the event and they sent several people out to plant, which was organized by and included Brad Cundy. “TLC is proud to be a sponsor of this event to help create a greener future. I know everyone who participated in the planting with TLC had a great time for such a worthy cause.”
London-Lambeth Rotary Club sponsored the event and also came out to help with the planting. “The members of the Rotary Club of London-Lambeth were happy to participate not only as a sponsor at the Meadowgate event, but also a number of us got away from our computer screens and participated,” said Mike MacKinnon, Club President. “We brought family members out – my wife and two sons came along – and it was good for all of us to be part of the Million Tree Challenge and learn how each of us can make a positive difference in our community.”
This event sponsorship model was such a success that we are considering doing the same thing annually for businesses. With luck, next year will not have restrictions on outdoor group sizes and we can get back to having lots of happy people joining in on a park naturalization planting.
A big thanks to all the business who sponsored this plating event: STIHL Ltd. Canada, TLC Landscaping, Dillon Consulting, Artcal Graphics & Printing, The Achievement Centre, Booch Organic Kombucha, Rotary London-Lambeth, and Wizards of Video, as well as Carolinian Canada and Deshkan Ziibi Conservation Impact Bond. Your support of our work and London’s Million Tree Challenge is most appreciated and will have a direct impact on London’s tree cover.