Honoring Earth Day with trails, benches, bird and bat houses
Volunteers from throughout the Greater Houston area provided a little sweat labor recently to beautify areas of Lake Houston Wilderness Park in New Caney.
More than 75 volunteers converged on the park on April 12 to help install park benches, build and install bat boxes and bird houses, and helped create a new trail around Lake Isabel.
“We had our program volunteers, which are mostly local students from the Houston area who give up their weekends to go out and do conservation service work, and we also had a great group of volunteers from AmeriCorps and some community members who just wanted to join us in the project,” said Julie Mintzer, Houston Program Coordinator for the Student Conservation Association.
Employees from Dallas-based Southwest Airlines also were among the group of volunteers who turned out at the Lake Houston Wilderness Park, and they participated in other conservation activities with the association throughout April.
Marilee McInnes, spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines, said the airline has a long relationship with conservation association and that Southwest employees look forward to volunteering on these projects.
“We have incredibly passionate employees who like making a difference,” she said. “Taking care of our natural resources and conservation is important to us. Serving nature is a great fit for us.”
The Student Conservation Association is a national organization that develops conservation leaders from all 50 states by providing high school and college students from urban communities with service opportunities in national parks and forests.
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