Project EverGreen completes three more renovation projects

Project EverGreen continues to deliver on its goal of revitalizing and renovating managed green spaces with the completion of three additional “Healthy Turf. Healthy Kids.”™ projects in Round Rock and Ft. Worth, Texas, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These undertakings are three of more than a dozen “Healthy Turf. Healthy Kids.” projects taking place across the United States in 2015.

Working in partnership with the Round Rock Parks and Recreation Department, Ft. Worth Parks and Community Services Department, the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association and Texas Water Smart Foundation, Project EverGreen and industry volunteers provided the materials and labor to restore more than 65,000 sq. ft. of playing surfaces at Round Rock’s Old Settler’s Park Silver Slugger Field and Ft. Worth’s Southwest Community Center Park Little League Field.

Both park’s baseball fields are being given a needed facelift to provide the hundreds of thousands of aspiring athletes who use the fields year-round with a safe place to play games and practice.

The initiative included soil aeration and fertilization, reseeding and application of soil top dressing, installing sod, excavating and grading the infield surfaces, and installing or repairing the park’s irrigation system. The fields were rehabilitated using Texas Water Smart water conservation techniques to ensure the green spaces are water efficient now and in the future.

Texas green industry volunteers ValleyCrest Landscape Maintenance, John Deere Landscape, Native Land Design, Whittlesey Landscape Supplies, Diamond Pro Sports Fields & Horticulture, Toro/Irritrol Irrigation Products donated the organic materials, fertilizer, replacement irrigation parts, equipment and labor to complete the project.

In Milwaukee volunteers from Spring Valley, Weed Man, Liesener Soils, Reinders, Inc. and the West Bend School District donated labor, equipment and material to aerate, overseed and fertilize playing surfaces in Decorah Elementary and Good Shepherd Schools. The project revitalized nearly 100,000 sq. ft. of playing and recreational surfaces that are used by school children during physical education classes and local recreational soccer, baseball and softball games.

“Our mission is to preserve and enhance green spaces where we live, work and play,” says Cindy Code, executive director of Project EverGreen. “Parks, sports fields and recreational play areas are vital to healthy, thriving communities. One of the ways we demonstrate our commitment is by mobilizing generous local landscape industry contractor volunteers to donate their time and talents to make these projects possible.”

Project EverGreen’s “Healthy Turf. Healthy Kids.” is a nationwide initiative to renovate and revitalize parks and athletic fields to ensure children have access to safe green spaces on which to play and exercise. Yards, parks and athletic fields not only promote a healthier lifestyle but contribute to economic growth, community development and benefit the environment.

Renovation projects are have been completed or scheduled in numerous cities across the United States in 2015 including San Antonio, Fort Worth and Round Rock, Texas; Atlanta; Cleveland; Chicago; Minneapolis; Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro, North Carolina; Milwaukee; and Portland, Oregon. Key contributors to the nationwide initiative include the Dominion Foundation, Performance Nutrition and the Sports Turf Managers Association.