Earth Day is this Saturday, with National Volunteer Week following the week after, and the city of Kalona is embracing both occasions with their tree planting project April 26th. Trees Forever, an Iowa-based environmental nonprofit, awarded Kalona with an $8,500 grant for the purchase and installation of trees in the city park.

City administrator Ryan Schlabaugh explains how this project began, “We went through kind of a visioning project and we also went through an assessment of our community park with respect to ash bore tree, and at that time we realized that we were pretty reliant on trees that were susceptible to disease. We are going to treat 20 of the major ones down there that are near the campground, but at the time the council really wanted to explore the opportunity to replant new species down there in the event that we do lose some that there be more canopy of some of the newer trees as they mature.”

Several city employees and representatives of Trees Forever will be working with Mid-Prairie Middle School students to plant between 80 and 90 trees of oak and other varieties. Schlabaugh says the trees and other plants selected were chosen from a native species list, and Schlabaugh says he feels confident that the species will thrive in the planted area.