A landscape work party that benefits more than 1,000 children, who will have a fully renovated sports field to play on next spring, is a party definitely worth attending.
Project EverGreen, as part of its Healthy Turf. Healthy Kids.™ initiative, has donated a professional landscaping renovation to restore and improve the weather-damaged turf fields of the Hazlet, New Jersey Youth Athletic League. With the assistance of the Performance Nutrition division of Hazlet-based LidoChem, Inc., and Bridgewater, N.J.-based Natural Green Lawn Care, and community members, a work party will reshape, fertilize and seed the field to create a safe, greenspace where aspiring young athletes and neighborhood children can play.
The professional landscaping contractor and supplier volunteers’ donations-in-kind of their expertise, materials, and services to improve the playability and safety of 100,000 sq. ft. of playing surface, totals over $20,000 in value.
The Hazlet Hawks football field was re-opened in 2016 for the first time in 10 years, but an exceptionally hot summer and fall, punctuated by recurring extreme rainfall, immediately left dead turfgrass and erosion damage that required renovation to correct the unsafe playing surface.
The fields provides more than 1,000 Hazlet Youth Athletic League football players, cheer squads, their parents, and coaches with a greener, safer, sustainable place to play. The field renovation will also provide significant environmental, economic and healthy lifestyle benefits to Hazlet’s children and their community.
“We’re proud to partner with Project EverGreen on this initiative to restore our own hometown Hazlet Hawks youth athletic field for our kids,” says Don Pucillo, president of LidoChem, Inc. “We’re especially pleased to contribute earth-friendly and kid-safe products to produce an athletic field that is a healthy green space where our children can play sports and just be kids.”
The project includes aeration, reseeding, and topsoil applications to build up the unsafe runoff low spots to spec, and applications of organic soil amendments and fertilizers.
Natural Green Lawn Care in Bridgewater is providing all of the equipment and labor to aerate apply the athletic turf grass seed mix, organic materials, and topsoil to fill low spots and the entire field and surrounding perimeter green space. The company is also donating the purchase and delivery of a truckload of approximately 18 cubic yards, or 20 tons of topsoil.
LidoChem made a significant financial contribution to the project, is donating the athletic turfgrass seed mix, which they purchased, and their organic NutriSmart-B soil inoculant. LidoChem’s employees have also committed their time to help in the renovation.
Managed parks, sports fields and recreational playing areas provide the following environmental, health and lifestyle benefits:
- Lawns and sports fields are 30 degrees cooler than asphalt; and 14 degrees cooler than bare soil.
- Parks and sports fields are gathering places that create close-knit communities, improve well-being and increase safety.
- Managed grass playing surfaces help minimize concussions and sports related injuries as well as reduce quantities or populations of mosquitoes, ticks and stinging insects.
- Physically active young people demonstrate higher academic performance at school.
Beyond Project EverGreen’s mission and its programs, as well as the many other industry initiatives and educational resources, the focus of this movement is to help raise the social consciousness about creating a healthier earth for future generations.
“There’s only one earth; we get only one chance at this,” says Cindy Code, Project EverGreen executive director. “We’re confident that as an industry, partnering with consumers, we can create an earth that is greener and cooler; and assure that we’re leaving an earth to the generations to come that will contribute to the healthiness and happiness for all.”
Project EverGreen’s “Healthy Turf. Healthy Kids.” is a nationwide initiative to renovate and renew parks and athletic fields, to ensure children have access to safe managed green spaces on which to play and exercise. To learn how you can start a revitalization project in your community, visit www.ProjectEverGreen.org or call 877.758.4835.