Delco Groups Team Up For Tree Planting Effort

NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA — A Newtown Square-based travel and hospitality group is teaming up with a local enviromental group for a volunteer tree-planting effort.

Newtown Square's Apple Leisure Group (ALG) has launched a new environmental partnership with Chester Ridley Crum Watersheds Association (CRC), a local non-profit organization dedicated to protecting water resources and the natural environment.

The long-term collaboration kicked off in late March with a volunteer tree-planting day at Garrett Williamson School and aims to hold similar events over the coming months.

More than 60 ALG employees —15 percent of the Newtown office staff — and several CRC experts worked together for a total of 180 man-hours to plant nearly 90 native trees and shrubs.

The various plants will reach significant height within five to 10 years, with several trees to grow to over 90 feet tall over the next 50 years. Once mature, a single tree has the potential to sequester the carbon dioxide equivalent of 4,890 miles driven by an average passenger car per year.

Other ecological benefits include water being filtered by the roots of the newly planted trees and shrubs, additional branches and canopies for flora and fauna to call home, a reduction of sedimentation throughout the creek’s banks, and an increase in the stream’s biodiversity through the regulation of water temperatures and oxygen levels. Most importantly, the forest will make a wonderful recreational and learning site for the children at the Garrett Williamson School.

A $10,000 donation from ALG for 2019, funded the tree-planting day and will also support a fall clean up and maintenance, further bolstering ALG’s existing environmental initiatives as well as the CRC’s mission to protect and conserve the natural resources of the Chester, Ridley and Crum Creek.

“We are excited for the opportunity to work with an organization that shares the same environmental values as we do,” said Alex Zozaya, CEO of ALG. “This is just the beginning of a great partnership that will help support our efforts for environmental preservation in the Newtown Square community long term.”

“CRC is grateful for Apple Leisure Group’s generous donation, both financial and in the volunteer hours of leadership and staff,” said Meghan Lockman, CRC’s Executive Director. “It was inspiring to watch the CEO, President and staff from all areas of the company work together to plant trees, remove invasives and help keep our watersheds healthy. With this kind of collaboration between business and nonprofit we achieve more than the sum of our parts. We are proud of this partnership and look forward to much productive work together in the future.”