Parks Board Uses Grant-Funded Tools to Improve Urban Forest

The Parks, Trees and Recreation Board helps the City of Red Lodge manage its urban forest. Despite a brief pause in 2020 due to the pandemic, board members are marching into this planting season and pruning season with big goals. These goals include planting more herbaceous plants such as grasses and perennials, expanding the capacity of the the Cost Share Tree program to plant more trees, and hosting a park clean-up each summer month.

In the past, the Parks Board has hosted the Earth Day park clean-up and pruning workshops with only a handful of older tools. They sought funding through the Montana Urban Community Forestry Association (MUFCA) grant to pay for half of the costs of purchasing new pruners, hand saws, loppers, and pole saws to name a few. These items were purchased in February 2021 just over the $1,000 budget. 

Since April, these new tools were used in the Earth Day Block Party and Parks Clean-Up event, by the NCCC AmeriCorps group, and most recently in our first monthly mini Park Clean-Up. Rue Freeman, the chair of the Parks Board, commented, "it's amazing the difference a high quality tool makes on getting the job done."