An ambitious crusade to plant new trees throughout the region moved into the heart of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood Friday.
Re-Tree WNY’s 20th volunteer planting focused on the area around Buffalo’s iconic Central Terminal. Re-Tree Chairman Paul Maurer told WBFO the new trees will help beautify the neighborhood surrounding the East side landmark.
“Buffalo in general could use trees just about anywhere, the East Side especially,” he said. “The nice part about the Central Terminal area is those are some beautiful boulevards that surround the Central Terminal. So when we put these 25 maples in there -- they’re called Morton Maples -- they will really look great in that area.”
Friday’s re-treeing effort received a big boost from Gintzler International, a company that event sponsors said is commemorating more than “100 years of packaging excellence.” As part of the centennial celebration, Gintzler presented a check for $1,000 in April to cover the cost of 10 trees.
Re-Tree WNY forces were aided in the planting mission by a local Boy Scouts Troop and the Curtiss Urban Farm Foundation at the Buffalo Central Terminal.
Ten years ago, the October Surprise storm destroyed more than 60,000 trees in Western New York. The heavy, wet snow fell when most trees still had their leaves, causing many of them to break. The epic loss led to the establishment of Re-Tree WNY, a program of Buffalo Green Fund. The effort looks to rebuild the area’s tree population with a goal to replace 30,000 of the damaged trees. Maurer said significant progress has been made.
“We’re nearly there, we are in the final stages of the reforestation. We’ve done a little over 28,000 trees which equals 56,000 because we put in a tree with our volunteers and then it’s matched by the municipality with their own crews.”
Replenishing the trees will ultimately help socially and ecologically, Maurer said.
“They are habitat for animals and they raise the value of the neighborhoods that they’re in by about 20 to 30 percent. So the value of this project is enormous when you think in terms of what each tree will do for the area it’s planted within.”
