Great support for GoGreen helps to beautify Swift Current
A large number of volunteers helped to beautify the community during the 11th anniversary GoGreen in Swift Current, Sept. 16.
The event was hosted by Stark & Marsh CPA LLP and Innovation Credit Union in partnership with the City of Swift Current and the Swift Current Creek Watershed Stewards.
The 2022 event was able to return to a regular format with volunteer participation by businesses and community members as well as a community barbeque. It did not take place in 2020 due to the COVIC-19 pandemic and last year's event only involved staff from the partner organizations.
According to Stark & Marsh Marketing Coordinator Ashley Lafontaine there were about 190 volunteers this year, which was more than usual.
“People were excited to get back out in the community and helping out,” she said. “We saw a lot of new businesses get involved this year. So that was really exciting.”
Staff from 19 different organizations, in addition to those from Stark & Marsh and Innovation Credit Union, participated in the event. There were also about 15 community volunteers.
The GoGreen initiative has resulted in the planting of over 2,700 trees and shrubs in the community since 2009. Another 494 plants were added this year, consisting of 103 trees and 391 shrubs and perennials.
“It was a lot of project sites, but it's always great to see,” she said. “We're so thankful for the work the City of Swift Current puts into this. They scope out the project sites, they tell us where they need it and they tell us how many volunteers they roughly think they will need, and we just try to provide the manpower. They're wonderful to work with. We're super thankful.”
Participants in this year's event included Grade 11 students from Swift Current Comprehensive High School and Grade 8 students from Central School. The youngest participants were children from the Swift Current Child Care Centre, who planted shrubs and picked up garbage.
“They make it a regular thing to go out and pick garbage, and so this was right up their alley to come and help out,” Lafontaine said. “So that was awesome.”
A variety of activities took place at the different project sites during the day. Shrubs and perennials were planted in new beds in Memorial Park, trees and other plants were planted at the new Kiwanis bike park, just over 30 trees were planted at the dog park, and over 30 trees were also planted at the mountain bike trail.
Some work took place at previous GoGreen sites to do some mulching, planting and cleaning, including at the flag court and Kiwanis Park. General cleanup, weed and dead tree removal took place at various sites, including the former Ashley Park School site, and the stormwater ditch along Douglas Drive. Garbage cleanup took place at various locations around the city.
Caragana trees were planted as a windbreak on the city's south side along Gladstone Street near 11th Avenue SW. Volunteers helped to remove invasive weeds at the Swift Current Creek Watershed Stewards site on the creek banks in the vicinity of Elmwood Park.
Resident will see the results of all the hard work carried out during this year's GoGreen whenever they drive past any of the project sites.
“One of the beautiful parts of this event is you get to drive around town now looking at all these sites and knowing it took a little small village, really an army of people, to help pull it off,” she said. “So that was great.”