On Saturday, October 10th, members of the Montgomery Middle School Leo Club participated in a tree planting event held by Construction Specialty near Montgomery. Nine students volunteered two hours of their time Saturday morning to help the C/S group elevate some of their carbon footprint. In two hours, these students planted about 20 trees. Pictured right to left are Lyndsie Peterson, Lacey Grimm, Mary Arnold, Felecia Phillips, Alicia Propst, Matt Rienhart, Megan Snyder, Christi Woodling, and Katie Scarbrough. The Leo Club's next event will be the Montgomery Halloween parade on Saturday, October 31st at 6:00. (Photo provided by Paul Roman)

MUNCY – On Saturday 235 people signed up to come to Construction Specialties on Route 405 in Muncy to plant 300 trees. More than half were employees of the company. “We planted four different trees,” said Joseph Styer, an employee from Danville and one of the main committee members who helped organize the event.

“We planted pin oak, poplar, red maple and flowering dogwood.”

The trees and supplies were provided by Three Springs Nursery Farm in Williamsport. Owner, Lee Freeman came at 8 a.m. to instruct the employees on how to plant them. They are working on covering seventeen acres. “Today we only did four acres,” said Styer.

A committee of six members met four years ago at Construction Specialties to start planning the idea. It was an unused field and we thought we could turn it into something useful according to Janine Barr, team facilitator. “We purchased three to four feet high trees to start,” she said. Shelters will be placed over them so they can survive through the winter. They will remain on the small trees for almost a year. This also prevents diseases and pests. A five year plan is in place to plant 8,000 trees and the committee hopes to get the entire community involved

The committee arrived at 7 a.m. followed by several hundred other volunteers. They were Boy Scout Troops Bears and Tiger Pack #116, Girl Scout Troops 1369 and 263, the Earth Smart Group from Penn College, the Montgomery High School Leo Club, the Montoursville High School Key Club, and the American Legion Venture Crew 2635 from Hughesville.

Next year the team is planning on purchasing several hundred seedlings. They would like to plant them in the spring and host a nice event for the community.

Other employee members on the team are Howard Williams, facilitator and Vice President, Brian Cotner, Montgomery, Chris Dalrymple, Elimsport, Dan Chapman, Hughesville, and Aaron Sauers, Muncy.