Volunteers helped to plant 450 trees at a Newton park on Saturday (Sept. 15).
TD Tree Days, hosted by TD Bank, is a countrywide event aimed at planting one million trees by 2030, according to a news release from TD Bank.
Raj Gill, the branch manager at TD Bank in Grandview Corners, was the event leader for Saturday’s tree planting at Hazelnut Meadows Community Park.
Despite the rain, Gill said more than 100 volunteers turned out throughout the day to help plant the trees.
Gill said he’s been the event leader for two years, but has volunteered at the tree planting for five years.
“I’ve actually seen it evolve quite a bit. We’ve had over 100 green spaces that we’ve been looking after. We’ve seen an increase of volunteers year over year, and not to mention, huge help from the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts”
But, he said, sometimes people who weren’t aware of the event will walk by and just get to work and start helping.
“Sometimes (they will) even pick up a shovel and support us as well.”
To date, TD Tree Days has planted close to 350,000 trees in Canada, reads the release. The event was launched in 2010 as a national employee engagement program, but has “evolved into TD’s flagship volunteer program, engaging employees, customers and community partners.”
lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com
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