Students at Yorkton Regional High School will be planting trees in May to mark Earth Day which was April 22.
AnaswaraReghu‐Puthuparambil, vice president of the school’s student body appeared before the regular meeting of Yorkton Council Monday to detail the plan.
The students plan to plant 400seedlingtreesinamongstforestedareaswithinthe cityincluding the KinsmenArena,TennisCourts,Western Development Museum,DucksUnlimited,and RavineEcological. They hope to do the planting May 28.
Reghu‐Puthuparambil noted the initiative has been supported by a donation from Pela to purchase the trees.
Pela is the company founded by Jeremy Lang to create an environmentally friendly cellphone case.
Lang came up with the idea for creating an eco-friendly Apple iPhone 4 case from flax fibre and bioplastic in the summer of 2010 and began talking with University of Saskatchewan researchers and applying for research and development funding.
“We’re kind of piloting a program ... It’s something we’re going to roll out,” Lang, the vice president of sustainability with Pela, told Yorkton This Week Monday.
Lang, who grew up in Yorkton and attended the Yorkton Regional High School, said the focus in on the idea of encouraging people to “do what you can do” to make a difference, in particular in regards to the environment.
“Make changes from wherever you are. Physically go out and take that action,” he said, adding the core idea is “just do it.”
To have the first project in Yorkton just made sense for Lang who said it was people in Yorkton who “encouraged me to not be afraid to have crazy dreams and to then work toward them.
Helping his former high school plant trees in a small way gives back to the local community.
Lang said Pela wants to help where it can.
“Anything we can do to help inspire people to take action. We want to be that catalyst,” he said.
