Project Evergreen connects Vets with landscape professionals

  • Published
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  GreenCare for Troops is a nationwide outreach program initiated by Project EverGreen that connects participating landscape maintenance professionals and citizen volunteers with families of the men and women away from home serving America in the Armed Forces.

Lawn and landscape maintenance becomes a definite hardship when a military family's primary breadwinner is on active duty away from home. GreenCare for Troops seeks to ease this burden by helping affected families with the important task of caring for their yard and landscape. Landscape professionals and individual volunteers donate their services to the military families during deployment time not to exceed one year.

Based in New Prague, Minn., Project EverGreen is a national non-profit organization representing the green industry service providers, associations, suppliers, distributors and individuals. The link between the families and the volunteers is done at the Project EverGreen headquarters. If a volunteer is located in the area of a military family, the military family is contacted by telephone or email with the volunteer's information. It is the military family's responsibility (due to confidentiality of the family's information) to contact the volunteer. Due to the number of military families and volunteers participating and our skeleton staff, a participating military family will hear from GCFT only when we have a volunteer to assist them.

Receiving free lawn care service depends on the volunteers in areas of need; this service is not guaranteed in all areas, but every effort is made to accommodate as many families as possible with the project's volunteers and by recruitment of more volunteers for those areas of need.

To date, there are more than 9,000 military families and more than 2,600 volunteers nationwide who have registered with the program. To participate as a family in need of lawn care, or to volunteer to ease this burden for a military family, please complete and submit a short on-line registration form which can be found on the Web site www.projectevergreen.com/gcft Donations welcome.