Many corporate entities purport to go “green” at every opportunity, be it growing a few vegetables on their roof or banning the printing of endless emails.
But TD Canada Trust is putting its shovels where its mouth is by planting around 600 new trees in Garden City Park in a few weeks.
In fact, the likes of big leaf maple, red alder, sitka spruce, yellow cedar, wine maple and red elderberry will be planted at 46 locations around the park on Oct. 3.
And, as part of the company’s nationwide TD Tree Days program, the bank is calling on Richmondites to join them on Saturday, Oct. 3 for the annual planting, which took place last year at the Bath Slough Trail on Cambie Road in east Richmond.
It’s a day that Emily Chan, a TD financial services representative at the banks’ Granville Avenue and No. 3 Road branch, looks forward to every year.
“This is our way of helping to green our communities,” said Chan, who is the site leader and organizer on the day and is responsible for getting everyone together and co-ordinating with the City of Richmond on where exactly the planting will take place in Garden City Park.
“I live in Richmond, so I’m all for this kind of thing; it makes it a better place to live.”
This is the sixth year TD has run the planting program, in a bid to maintain and develop urban forests and the company has pledged to double the amount of trees planted from last year’s 300 or so.
“This is the fourth year I’ve been doing this and last year there was about 80 or 90 people out helping us plant the trees and shrubs.
“There were families, customers, Girl Guides, employees, all sorts of people.”
This September and October, TD is inviting people across the nation to get involved in TD Tree Days, with a target of planting 50,000 trees across Canada.
“We know that Canadians recognize the benefits of urban green spaces and care about environmental health,” said Mary Desjardins, executive director, TD Friends of the Environment Foundation.
In the last five years, thousands of volunteers have planted over 185,000 trees from coast to coast through the program.
The Richmond planting will be at a few locations across Garden City Park from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Oct. 3. Log onto www.tdtreedays.com and look for the Richmond location to sign up or go into any local TD branch.
