Tree Canada is Canada's largest and oldest non-profit charitable tree planting organization, and they were in Lacombe this morning (Wednesday, September 20th) at a tree planting ceremony at the Lacombe Dog Park.

Mayor Steve Christie as well as representatives from Tree Canada and Nowco Home Hardware was in attendance, since it's our local Home Hardware store who successfully applied for the Tree Canada Grant.

Community Advisor with Tree Canada Gerard Fournier explains how important Home Hardware is to Tree Canada.

“Home Hardware is one of our best corporate sponsors, they’ve been with us for well over 20 years. Tree Canada has been around for 25 years. And in that time Home Hardware has planted more than 20 thousand trees across Canada.The Home Hardware owners have a little contest to see who has the best idea, and then the winners of that get the grant through Tree Canada to plant the trees.”

Those ideas are based on what community currently has the most need for the trees.

Owner of Nowco Home Hardware Tyler Nowochin talks about the strong partnership between Tree Canada and Home Hardware nationally. 

“Home Hardware is nationally a very community orientated company, therefore it’s just beautifying some greenspace in the communities Home Hardware is part of. We always plant them in nice natural areas, areas that need to be spruced up a bit.” 

A mix of 24 native and hardy trees and shrubs are in the process of being planted at the dog park, and they are a mix of dogwood, buck eye, nanking cherry, couple oak trees and a few spruce trees.

In the 25 years Tree Canada has been around, they have planted over 80 million trees across Canada, while teaching Canadians about the value of trees.

Home Hardware’s across Canada have planted over 24,000 trees worth approximately $1,200,000 in the 25 years they have been planting trees in partnership with Tree Canada. 

For more information, you can visit their website treecanada.ca