By By Adrienne McKenzie
The Atmore Area Chamber of Commerce helped to replenish the city with trees this spring with its “Hardwoods for Atmore” tree giveaway project. Monday morning Chamber representatives were presented a $2,000 check from Gulf Coast RC&D, which provided a grant to make the project happen.
Back in March, the Chamber gave away more than 100 trees at Heritage Park to Atmore area residents as a part of its Community ReLeaf Initiative. The goal was to help replace the trees that hurricanes Ivan and Dennis stole. The trees were funded by a $2,000 matching grant from the Gulf Coast Resource Conservation and Development Council (RC&D).
Escambia County extension coordinator Olin F. “Buck” Farrior was in Atmore in March when the Chamber gave out the many trees to educate owners on how to take care of them.
Gulf Coast RC&D secretary Elaine Whittington said in March that the organization meets many needs of Escambia and surrounding counties.
The trees provided with this grant were five to six feet tall and were a variety of hardwoods including oaks, hickories, maples and larger shade trees.