In 2010, Earth Day at MRCN was all about the trees!  On Friday, April 16, we worked with Job Point’s construction crew to plant 300 trees in a strip of land between Interstate 70 and Highway 63 in Columbia. When looking for volunteers to help plant the trees, a representative from Job Point said they were looking for “dirty jobs."  Job Point is a job training program, and this crew was great! 10 crew members and 2 staff showed up in work gear, complete with boots, gloves and goggles!  After showing everyone how to use the dibbles and plant the trees, we got started. The planting was a little difficult, as the ground was pretty solid, dry and full of gravel! But we prevailed, and got all 300 trees in the ground in about 3 hours.

We planned a second tree planting for Thursday, April 22- the official Earth Day. This time we were located at the Columbia Sanitary Landfill, focusing on an area of field between the compost piles and nearby Hinkson Creek.  Part of the streambank had eroded pretty extremely from last fall’s heavy rains. Our trees will help stabilize this area, as well as act as filters for any nutrients that would leach from the landfill, through the ground and into the Hinkson.  We recruited volunteers, and had a trickle of people throughout the day, helping us plant 450 trees in about 2 acres of stream side land!