On a recent Sunday I spent the morning with several dozen other volunteers planting sapling trees along farm creek in Union Bridge. Then I changed in my car, stripping off muddy clothes, and donned my Ravens jersey. Then I watched the football game over a burger with other fans at Johanssons.
How cool is that?
Now's your chance to get out of town, get dirty, get some fresh air, and still be back in time for football.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is looking for volunteers to plant 1,000 native trees and plants Saturday, Nov. 16 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at a farm in Union Bridge. Please register at www.cbf.org/calendar.
CBF has been organizing farm plantings for more than a decade in Carroll County - usually in the fall and spring. The program harnesses volunteer labor, government and private funding, and low-cost trees grown by CBF at its farm to help farmers in Maryland at minimal cost to themselves, and also to help reduce water pollution.
The trees are used to buffer creeks from agricultural pollution.
The Nov. 16 planting also will feature another innovative collaboration. Two partners, Washington Gas Energy Services (WGES) and Sterling Planet, are helping fund the planting. WGES and Sterling Planet have contributed more than $400,000 to a CBF-directed Carbon Reduction Fund. The Fund supports projects that both reduce greenhouse gases and improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, projects that have included planting more than 9,000 trees in Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Talbot, Frederick, and Carroll counties in Maryland.
The planting will be on the Lovell Farm.
Other partners in the Lovell farm project include: The Carroll County Conservation Soil Conservation District, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Maryland Association of Student Councils.
