We got the following email from our friend Tom Delaney, Director of Government Affairs for the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET):
“The Occupy Toronto movement trashed one of Toronto’s inner city Parks. When the City issued a plea for financial support to help restore the park, one of our members came up with the idea that we as an industry should just restore the park ourselves. One email and two days of hard but very satisfying work later, 150 volunteers aerated the entire park, spread 1 inch of topsoil and sodded all 3 acres. It was an amazing experience. Everything was donated.”
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| The park following the day of volunteer work. |
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| Here’s what the park looked like following the Occupy Toronto protesters vacated the site. |
Apparently about $60,000 in product and services was donated by members of Landscape Ontario. It’s yet another example of the extraordinary people we have in our industry.
There are a couple of videos about the work at St. James Park. In one, someone put a stop-motion camera in place and with the addition of a background track (“Flight of the Bumblebees” if I’m not mistaken) created this highly entertaining YouTube video.
The good deed also got coverage from a Toronto television station. See that here.
