Mortenson Partners with Neighborhood Forest during Earth Week
Mortenson partnered with Neighborhood Forest to bring plants to classrooms and talk to children about the importance of caring for living things and the environment. The mission of Neighborhood Forest is to give free trees to kids every Earth Day. Providing trees enables our youth the opportunity to care for a living thing and learn the benefits of plants. It also helps reduce our carbon footprint! Since 2010, Neighborhood Forest has partnered with over 2,000 schools, libraries, and youth groups and planted over 197,000 trees across North America.
Mortenson partnered with Neighborhood Forests through their new initiative, the Indoor Plant Program. This initiative makes their program more inclusive by allowing students to care for a plant, without the barrier of needing a yard to plant a tree in. This opens participation to kids who live in apartments and kids who don’t have a stable home.
In Minneapolis, team members built 144 succulent kits. Once the succulents were planted and ready to go, team members delivered the plants to a local elementary school, alongside our friends at Neighborhood Forest. Volunteers visited several classrooms from grades K-5. The students learned about their plants, caring for living things and the earth! They decorated a bamboo marker with the name of their plants before taking it home to care for.
Georgia team members put together kits to provide plants to first-grade students at their local elementary school. The kids were delighted to get their plants and learn how to care for them on Earth Day!
Mortenson’s Salt Lake City team decided to plant succulents with the kids. As they planted, they talked about what plants needed to grow, why it is important to have plants and trees and to take care of them, and how they take care of us, too. After planting, they read Catch the Wind and Catch the Sun, Mortenson’s children’s books about clean energy.
Thank you to all our team members who participated and to Neighborhood Forest for their dedication to an inclusive plant program. ITS team member Eduardo said it best, “Thanks to Neighborhood Forest for letting me be part of the impact and making a difference. Best believe, if there is another opportunity to volunteer, count me in!"