Make A Difference Day - October 27th 2007

This year’s Make A Difference Day on October 27^th was truly an example of many facets of one community coming together for a common cause. The project this autumn was to plant nearly 200 trees in Riverside as an effective way to remove pollutants from the air.

 In preparation for the project, Keep Riverside Clean and Beautiful (KRCB) and the City of Riverside – Public Works Department marked the future tree sites and layed out the overall design. Thank you to Frank Heyming for tree planting lessons, and tree inspectors Guy Tanaka, James Rath, from the City of Riverside—Public Works Department and Robert Filiar and Anna from the Public Works Department.

 On the morning of October 27th, 215 volunteers from organizations such as Girl Scouts, Circle K and CBU Baseball Team arrived at the United Way of the Inland Valleys at 7:00 a.m. to begin planting the 184 trees. Mayor Ron Loveridge was on hand to kick off the event by thanking the volunteers for their assistance and to show appreciation for their hard work.

 After a half day of planting, beautiful trees such as Chinese Pastiche, Chinese Hackberry, Black Acacia, Chinese Fringe, and Australian Willows now line the two mile stretch of River Crest Drive, Box Springs Road and Fischer Road. Once the trees were planted, West Coast Arborists supported them with a terrific crew who staked and watered all 184 trees.

The American Red Cross was a great support to this project by allowing KRCB to safely store 200 trees in preparation for the project. In addition, the United Way of the Inland Valleys allowed KRCB to use their property by using their parking lot for registration and a snack bar all day during the project. A free Bar-B-Que lunch was provided by the McConnel family of Arlington rotary and the Girl Scouts had a great time serving up all of the fixings for hot dogs, chips, and soda. In addition, free t-shirts were provided to the volunteers by DHL Express.

 KRCB would also like to thank their advisory board Bud Fish, Brenda Flowers, Dave Roger, Linda Lawyer, and Dale McNair for your great assistance with this successful tree planting project.